Massachusetts Books

A personal account of Professor Derrick Bell's protest of Harvard Law School's refusal to offer tenure to a woman of color. Bell, the first Black tenured Professor at Harvard Law, made it clear from the beginning that he did not wish to be a token member of the faculty. Professor Bell took a leave of absence in protest after years of waiting for the Harvard faculty hiring committee to offer tenure to a women of color. An insightful, retrospective look at each decision Bell made, the effects his choices had on many of the players, and the invaluable lessons he learned from the experience. This book is a must for anyone who desires to continue the struggle for equality and social justice. Essential for activists and organizers.

This is another masterpiece by the literary genius Ishmael Reed. His poetry is as delighting as his famous prose and points to a deep appreciation of African-American heritage and culture that we should all aspire to. Unlike many who try and deny the presence of a continuous traditional african religion, Reed here celebrates and illuminates his readers.

This is a wonderfully readable book about the history of the Connecticut River published in 1947, before the river got cleaned up at all. Mr. Hard covers everything from an overview of the geology of the River to its discovery by Europeans and its settlement, first by the Dutch and then by the British. He writes of crossings (ferries and bridges) to some degree, of the first steam boats (before Fulton!), and quite a bit about the decline of the fishery. This is largely a history book about the Connecticut River Valley, and I highly recommend it for those interested in this topic.

Bell builds on his previous work "The Afro-American Novel and Its Tradition"; whose content is alluded to in the subtitle for this work. Chapters two thru five of this book are revisions and summaries of parts of the previous work. What is new to this book are its introductory memoir "On Becoming an African American Scholar," its Introduction, chapters one and six thru eight, and the conclusion. A professor of English at Pennsylvania State U., Bell both expansively and acutely deals with the body of African American literature. His knowledge of this field is encyclopedic. While sharing in the common origin of the folk literature, African American literature nonetheless reflects broader literary movements such as neorealism, modernism, and postmodernism. Such authors have also had the outstanding talent and creativity to develop distinctive styles and voices. This voluminous, comprehensive study also ranges to what Bell terms "paraliterature," which might also be called popular literature. This includes pulp fiction, formulaic adventure stories, supernatural tales, romances, science fiction, mystery and crime, and gay literature. Bell does not force these greatly diversified genres ranging from the enduring literary works of Richard Wright and Toni Morrison to the science fiction of Ray Delany and the mysteries of Walter Mosby into a procrustean bed of the folk tale sources of all. Rather, his ingenious linking of them together while doing justice to their uniqueness creates a constellation of African American literature which is both a guide to it and inducement for exploration of it.

I loved this book--it's chock full of images and great info for historical research I needed for the area. Jim Gould definately ~knows~ the area. Highly recommend for anyone interested in lower Cape research or anyone who just likes to learn about days by-gone.

I read this a long time ago as a high-school student and liked it very much. I look forward to reading it again soon.

This book is technical and contains a lot of detail. But if you are a descendant of Mill workers from the Lawrence/Lowell area and you want to know more about the actual decline and the abandonment of the area by the Industrialist of the era this is a good place to start. I found out what I wanted to know. I have also written a book about growing up in Lawrence in the 60's entitled "A Summer with Charlie" which is now also listed on Amazon. I'm getting a novel ready also about Lawrence "Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother". It has a lot to do with the mills closing down after the war and the difficulties that were placed on the workers and their families. So as you might imagine this subject and this book were of particular interest to me.

Some trips are worth taking. Cranberry Smoke is one of them. On a 13 year journey through the cities and towns of Massachusetts, poet Michael Hood explores questions about himself, and questions about the universe. With always an eye for the forgotten, the poor, and the lost, Hood's eloquence evokes emotions of compassion, joy, sorrow, humor, and wonder. It is a book that reminds us of our flaws and our potentials, and the poet's pain and gifts. This is a one-of-a-kind trip, an indepth look at ourselves, in which we emerge bruised but not broken, and infinitely better as people. - Joseph Gustafson

"David Cline has assembled an amazingly rich repository of testimonies. This work is a major contribution to the project of preserving and disseminating the histories of activism, feminism, and reproductive politics in the United States."

--Rickie Solinger, author of Pregnancy and Power: A Short History of Reproductive Politics in America (New York University Press, 2005) and other books

"In this rich collection of interviews, David Cline illuminates the courage, pain and determination of those who dared to break laws that banned abortions and chose instead to create communities that embraced choice."

--William H. Chafe, Alice Mary Baldwin Professor of History, Duke University

"David Cline has written an extremely moving and fascinating account of one community's response to the reproductive health care needs of women in the era before Roe v Wade. Cline's book is most timely, as the hard won victories of the past-for access to birth control as well as to abortion care-are once again in jeopardy."

--Carole Joffe, author of Doctors of Conscience: The Struggle to Provide Abortion Before and After Roe v Wade (Beacon Press, 1995)

"A powerful document of the history of abortion Creating Choice is wonderfully accessible, an important collection for anybody trying to understand the history of women and sexuality."

--Johanna Schoen, University of Iowa, author of Choice and Coercion: Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare (University of North Carolina Press, 2005)

"An urgent and moving account of the multiple sources of change that brought about the spectacular-and now imperiled-expansion of women's reproductive rights. Through an exemplary use of oral history interviews, David Cline has uncovered the "amazing web" of ministers, doctors, and feminists who provided support for women seeking access to birth control and abortion in the years before Roe v Wade. Until now, such local stories have been repressed and forgotten, distorting history and severing the struggle for women's rights from the larger project of human progress and freedom.

--Jacquelyn Hall, Spruill Professor of History and Director of the Southern Oral History Program, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

This book is a meticulously-researched look at the forces that shaped religious thought in early America. Dr. Field traces the political infighting and economic pressures on church leaders that led to the separation of religious and secular cultures, a condition evident in our present-day factionalism. This is not a book for the faint of heart. It is detailed, precise, and reads like a mystery novel as we follow the threads of intellectual, cultural, and religious thoughts from the Puritans and Calvinists to the Unitarians and beyond. Field's book brings us to Emerson and the brink of the Industrial Revolution, another turning point in American culture. This book is a "must" for understanding the intricacy of our religious expression.