Pennsylvania Books

This is a great book. Philadelphia was blessed with some beautiful buildings and sad to say many did not service so called progress. The vintage images were very interesting and the text was very informative. Philadelphia did lose many buildings that never should have been destroyed, but many of the historic buildings on Society Hill or great buildings like Independence Hall and its annex buildings, survive and I do like what the park service did to house the Liberty Bell, it's sort of Modern Georgian. It's hard to believe that the iconic City Hall building was so close to being pulled down, it barely survived, I mean can you image Philadelphia without City Hall?!!! so it could have been worse...and Wannamakers is still extant, though it's now called Lord and Taylor and at least the greatest of department store buildings is still open and glorious, but i do wish they would get rid of that ridiculous steel stucture substituting for the great Franklins home..its awful..just rebuild it and let people know it's a reproduction..this is BEN FRANKLINS HOUSE, people!!! I do love how Philadelphia cherish's the great Franklin, he is the greatest of the founding father's and he gets his due respect in his home town..i still cant believe that he does not have a huge memorial in Washington, it's a travesty. Great book..if you have any love at all for architecture history of Philadelphia in general...oh and Philadelphians dont let them tear down Lynnewood Hall in Elkins Park, it's the last of the great Gilded age estates in Philadelphia, it's on it's last leg..dont let it go the way of the late, great Whitemarsh Hall.

Tom Keels has produced a treasure of a book. There are many compilations of photographs of old Philadelphia, but Keels supplies what others mostly lack -- a brief but rich history and context for each of the lost buildings he documents. Many of the photographs will be familiar to anyone interested in Philadelphia history, but this should not discourage you from buying the book. You will learn a great deal, thanks to Keels' perspicacious research. Moreover, his prose is graceful and witty, never stodgy.

This is an amazing book and concept! It's a guided tour of Philadelphia history like no other. The maps in the book are especially effective in highlighting the changes in the Philadelphia landscape over the years. I used the same Philadelphia based cartographers, NaZa, for ABC Philadelphia to highlight the best and most current places for Philadelphia families today, now I'm wondering about the best family places in Philadelphia from yesteryear. This will be on the top of my holiday list this year.

I have read many cop stories but this is one of the tops on my list. From start to finish you can not put this thriller down. What makes it especially interesting is that it seems so real especially since I live in the area. The character development is superb and the street imagery is so lifelike. This is a new author for me and I hope he continues to write more great stories such as this one.

In Philadelphia, two white police officers Mutt and Roy, call for supervisory help. Sergeant Eddie North arrives only to have African-American Councilman Sonny Knight scream at him to get the two cops away from him. Later, Sonny accuses Mutt and Roy of beating him up and adds Eddie to his list of accusation. Both officers deny ever touching Sonny and Eddie believes them because he knows he is innocent and neither of the policemen on the scene showed any sins of using force, let alone excessive.

However, the brass, the politicians, and the media think otherwise forcing an Internal Affairs investigation. As this scenario further splits a city divided over another controversial case, Eddie tries to learn why Sonny lied, but soon finds he is drowning in a polluted cesspool of corruption, bad cops, and duality racism.

The inquiries made by the IA staff and by Eddie are intelligent and entertaining so that police procedural fans have a powerful enjoyable tale. However, FOUR TO MIDNIGHT is more than another urban police story. Instead the theme focuses on how racism engulfs everyone in a swamp and destroys the innocent and their friendships. Thus the audience receives a superb police procedural with a cleverly interwoven powerful message.

Harriet Klausner

FOUR TO MIDNIGHT is a very unusual police novel. As a good, juicy page-turner, it delivers the goods and then some - Flander's handling of action sequences is particularly exciting, and very nearly cinematic (I'd definitely like to see the movie of this one). But it's also an exceptional portrait of a city and the cultures within it - Philadelphia, its neighborhoods, its citizens and their multiple mindsets are all conveyed intimately and immediately, so that you instantly feel like you know this place and these people. Finally, the writing is quietly brilliant. There are very few great stylists in this genre, but Flander, in this book, announces himself as one of them - he has drawn together plot, theme, character and place seamlessly and masterfully, creating, not only a great read, but a great novel.

To the author: I can't tell you how fantastic I think it is that all of your hard work on this book really paid off. To me, it wasn't merely a history book; it was an opportunity to stand beside the men you described and to watch them be who they are. I could see the wear and tear on their clothes and almost smell the baked-in odors of days and months without baths.

From Home Guards to Heroes is a thoroughly researched, creative, and engaging history of the 87th Pennsylvania Infantry and the primary location from which its members came, Adams and York Counties, Pennsylvania. (Reviewer's disclosure: my great-great-great uncle, Daniel P. Reigle, was a member of Company F of the 87th, leading to my personal interest in this unit.)

The foundation of this book is Brandt's extensive research: U.S. census records, nearly 2000 Compiled Military Service Records, and over 1000 pension files for 87th Pennsylvania members, in addition to those records for over 800 men from the Adams/York areas who enlisted in other units in 1861. This study yields descriptive data on the 87th and comparative data relative to men in other units on factors such as their professions, age, physical characteristics, age at death, life expectancy, American-born and foreign-born, and their personal worth in personal property and real estate at the time they enlisted. The data on 1861 enlistments (both 87th and other units) is presented with the 1860 Lincoln vote for each of the fifty-five townships and boroughs in the two counties.

The quantitative research is complemented by extensive use of newspapers, including not only major city newspapers, but the local newspapers in the Gettysburg, York, and Hanover, important for understanding the political landscape and personalities in the area. For example, in addition to the rich contemporary information yielded by those newspapers, this research also yielded the valuable recollections by Michael Heiman in the York Gazette in 1891-1892. Further, Brandt has made use of any available manuscript sources, such as the George Blotcher papers at the excellent library of the York County Historical Trust, the Thomas Crowl papers at the U.S. Army Military History Institute and Penn State University libraries, and other materials provided by 87th descendants. He uses this information to create "sketches" of each company in the 87th, and the primary officers who were instrumental in its formation and its four years of service. I have seen many of these names "on paper" in years of reading about the 87th, but I found Brandt's sketches to provide an entirely new level of perspective on the men themselves.

This is a "real people" approach to the regiment's people and history, and it does not hesitate to share information that is delicate or uncomplimentary. For example, in the unit's rush to organize, there was no attempt to make any pre-enlistment physical examination of the potential enlistees. Brandt presents data to show that this resulted in more than 11% of the 1861 enlistees leaving the service for illness or injury; by comparison, the 7th PA Reserves' Company H, recruited in the same area, conducted full physical exams and experienced less than half that level of attrition. At another level that paints a less-than-heroic picture of some of the 87th's men, the unit was chartered and recruited primarily to provide security on the important Northern Central Railroad between Harrisburg and Baltimore. Although this was critically important to the Union effort in the first year of the war, such duty was not expected to involve major combat, long marches, or significant hardships at great distances from home. As a result, there was significant consternation among some parts of the 87th when their mission changed to becoming a fighting unit in the Union Army. Brandt examines the subject of desertions in detail, both real and on paper only, especially those occurring in the aftermath of the 87th's loss of 293 men captured at 2nd Winchester during the prelude to Gettysburg in June 1863. Drawing on Ella Lonn's classic Desertion During the Civil War for perspective, he provides many details on the individual cases of some men who intended to desert and did so, but also includes cases that illustrate how men could be tagged as "deserters" unfairly due to cumbersome administrative processes,. Finally, the chapter on "South-Central Pennsylvania and Race" will undoubtedly leave readers with roots in the 87th's home territory with a better understanding of the complex views of the community on race, slavery, emancipation, and the meaning of citizenship, but also with some embarrassment in accepting in our 21st Century the opinions of our ancestors in the 19th Century. These are difficult subjects to tackle objectively and fairly, and I commend the author for doing so. It provides additional perspective for the 87th's solid performance as part of the VI Corps in 1864 and 1865.

A difficult choice for the author of any regimental history is how much detail to include on the battles in which the unit participated. Brandt made the choice to not attempt to relate in detail the battles at 2nd Winchester, Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, 3rd Winchester, Fisher's Hill, Cedar Creek, the Petersburg Campaign including the Breakthrough on 2nd April 1865, and the Appomattox Campaign. He does include a more extensive analysis of Monocacy because of the 87th's pivotal role there in slowing down Early's advance on Washington D.C. This is clearly the right choice, in my opinion, because it enables Brandt to use the space of his book to focus on the 87th, while the reader interested in more depth on the 87th at the major battles can readily turn to other excellent studies.

This book will be of value to anyone studying the genealogy or local history of the York/Adams County area. However, I also believe this book to be of significant value to anyone interested in an indepth understanding and history of a Union infantry regiment. Although the 87th was, of course, a set of specific individuals and events, the themes, dynamics, and patterns likely have a high degree of similarity in other units. I will not only be re-reading this book more than once, but will use it as a valuable reference in my own Civil War genealogy and history research.

If you are looking for a Civil War story that is new and different this is the book for you. I was held captive from start to finish. Dennis Brandt tells, after 10 years of research, the story only he can tell. The story of the 87th Pennsylvania. It is a story about the lives of the boys from York and Adams county. Yes, Gettysburg is in Adams County but this is not another tired tale of that great story. It is instead about how the boys started their Army life rather dull, guarding railroads ect. as many battles raged on in other parts of the U.S.A. But our boys get taken captive, they escape, they die and in the end we ponder over whether The Grand Old Flag would still fly over those states south of Mason-Dixon if not for these HEROS.

To anyone that is not familar with coal region life...this is a good reflection of what it was like. The hard times, the good times, the cheating and politics that went on even in that era. I thought it was great and very interesting.

I WOULD RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO ANY ONE THAT ENJOYS A GOOD STORY. I FEEL YOU COULD PUT YOUR OWN ANCESTORY INTO SOME OF THE EVENTS IN THIS BOOK. ALTHOUGH IT WAS WRITTEN ABOUT EARLY DAYS OF THE COAL REGION IN PENNSYLVANIA I THINK LIFE WAS LIKE THIS FOR MOST IMMIGRANTS COMING TO AMERICA IN THIS TIME FRAME. I WOULD LIKE TO READ BOOKS NORM OLEY WILL WRITE IN THE FUTURE IF THE STORY KEEPS ME INTERESTED THE WAY THIS ONE HAS.

this is the 1st book i have read in a long time that made me want to finish it the same day. i found this book to be interesting showing accounts of how events actually happened in the early days of coal discovery in the coal region of pennsylvania. i believe this is a book the whole family would enjoy reading. writing was tasteful. being from the coal region and trying to put my own family history to the book although fiction could possibly been loosely based on facts. i am looking forward to the next book norm oley writes.

Just got the book the other day. It has plenty of information of all the golf courses around the NYC area. I also discovered plenty of courses around my area that I didn't know about before! If your an avid golfer around these neck of the woods, this book is a MUST HAVE.

An excellent reference for the Big Apple golfer. Info on all courses within a 70 mile radius of NYC. Including their Top 30 Public Courses, as well as listings of ranges, golf stores and all things golf...SCHWING Magazine-Summer 1999 issue.

If golf is your game...as their ads correctly say "you gotta have this book"...it has everything you need to know about golfing in the NY Metropolitan Area...invaluable !

This is what a tour book should be - it has great maps, detailed descriptions of the history of the trail and how you can see what remains of it. There are also many interesting sidebars and annecdotes which make the history more relevant and connect it to things you already know.

Absolutely a superb book. The author is a cartographer whose maps are the basis for many local trails. In this book he shares the history of the area and tells the stories behind the things you see on the trail. This book helps you understand the area you're passing through. Well written, highly usable; glad I bought it.

The Great Allegheny Passage Companion: Guide To History And Heritage Along The Trail by writer, editor, map maker, and enthusiastic bicyclist Bill Metzger is a detailed, mile-by-mail guidebook to the Allegheny Passage Trail. Especially written for bikers, hikers, rail buffs, armchair travelers and the non-specialist general reader interested in learning more about the colorful past of the great state of Pennsylvania, The Great Allegheny Passage Companion is replete with extensive historical anecdotes for every leg of the journey distinguishing this especial guide. Nicely enhanced with a profusion of black-and-white photographs, maps, and solid travel advice, The Great Allegheny Passage Companion is an invaluable travel planning resource and reference for anyone seeking to fully experience what the Allegheny Passage has to offer the contemporary traveler.

We took the book with us to Pittsburgh and discovered all sorts of places we wouldn't have known about otherwise. Never steered us wrong.

I no longer travel without a Moon Handbook.

As a Pittsburgher-- born, raised and educated in one of the greatest of American cities-- it's vexing to see Amazon.com dropped my 'ometown's "h" when listing the Pennsylvania 'andbook's complete title with the incorrect spelling "Pittsburg." Pittsburgh without the "h" is like Miam, New Yor, Chicag, or Salt Lake Cit without their respective final letters. 'ere's 'oping your editorial staff checks out one of the atlases you sell on-line next time!

Hawk Mountain is my favorite place in the entire world, and when I received my copy of this book, I immediately started reading. I couldn't put it down. The narrative is spellbinding; among his other many talents, Broun was an excellent writer. The photographs add an extra dimension to the story of the sanctuary and make the manuscript come alive. It was especially meaningful to me as someone who is so familiar with and fond of the place, but even someone who has never seen it can't fail to be moved by the passion and the conviction with which the sanctuary founders moved forward with their vision. Highly recommended.

A true conservation classic. Anyone who has visited Hawk Mountain will appreciate this book. The wholesale slaughter of the 20's and 30's of hawks passing over the Pennsylvania mountain is vividly described and will outrage any nature lover. Broun also poetically describes the beauty and solitude of life on the mountain in all seasons. Highly recommended! Stephen Rees. Abington, Pa.

A true conservation classic. Anyone who has visited Hawk Mountain will appreciate this book. The wholesale slaughter of the 20's and 30's of hawks passing over the Pennsylvania mountain is vividly described and will outrage any nature lover. Broun also poetically describes the beauty and solitude of life on the mountain in all seasons. Highly recommended! Stephen Rees. Abington, Pa.

Understanding the historical development of pensions is critical to the future of retirement systems around the world. This volume offers a comprehensive assessment of the political and financial dimensions of public sector pensions from the colonial period until the emergence of modern retirement plans in the twentieth century. The authors emphasize how retirement plans can help achieve human resource objectives, how public sector pension policy has sometimes been influenced by other government objectives, and how early pension plans were funded.

After discussing the economics of retirement plans, the authors review the history of European retirement plans, beginning with their use in the Roman Empire, and then moves on to early American pension systems. They explore the development and management of U.S. army and navy pension plans during the nineteenth century, drawing on original records of participants, retirees, and plan finances. They document the struggle to establish a federal civil service retirement system and trace the growth of state and local retirement plans. This history is inextricably linked to broader developments in U.S. financial markets, offering rich insights into political debates, including current debates surrounding plan design and plan funding.

This book is of significant interest to financial market and pension experts, labor and corporate pension sponsors, policymakers, public sector plan participants, and others who want to know how and why pensions emerged. Robert L. Clark is Professor of Economics and Professor of Business Management, North Carolina State University, and coeditor of the volume To Retire or Not? Retirement Policy and Practice in Higher Education, also available in the series from the University of Pennsylvania Press. Lee A. Craig is Professor of Economics, North Carolina State University. Jack W. Wilson is Professor of Business Management, North Carolina State University.

Understanding the historical development of pensions is critical to the future of retirement systems around the world. This volume offers a comprehensive assessment of the political and financial dimensions of public sector pensions from the colonial period until the emergence of modern retirement plans in the twentieth century. The authors emphasize how retirement plans can help achieve human resource objectives, how public sector pension policy has sometimes been influenced by other government objectives, and how early pension plans were funded.

After discussing the economics of retirement plans, the authors review the history of European retirement plans, beginning with their use in the Roman Empire, and then moves on to early American pension systems. They explore the development and management of U.S. army and navy pension plans during the nineteenth century, drawing on original records of participants, retirees, and plan finances. They document the struggle to establish a federal civil service retirement system and trace the growth of state and local retirement plans. This history is inextricably linked to broader developments in U.S. financial markets, offering rich insights into political debates, including current debates surrounding plan design and plan funding.

This book is of significant interest to financial market and pension experts, labor and corporate pension sponsors, policymakers, public sector plan participants, and others who want to know how and why pensions emerged. Robert L. Clark is Professor of Economics and Professor of Business Management, North Carolina State University, and coeditor of the volume To Retire or Not? Retirement Policy and Practice in Higher Education, also available in the series from the University of Pennsylvania Press. Lee A. Craig is Professor of Economics, North Carolina State University. Jack W. Wilson is Professor of Business Management, North Carolina State University.

Clark, Craig, and Wilson have produced a comprehensive book that serves a wide audience. While providing a detailed history of the development of public sector pensions from colinial times to 1920, tghe authors have taught their readers about the economic theory of pensions, informed them about the origins of the modern welfare state, and guided them to better understand the policy implications of recent proposals to reform Social Security. In the end, this book accomplishes much.

Shawn Kantor
University of California, Merced, and National Bureau of Economic Research

Not for the academic alone, Hitler's Face lays out not only post-WWI Germany's obsession with physiognomy but also its maniacal drive to construct a physiognomic system which could redeem the fatherland after its disgrace at Versailles; the drive to construct, as Schmýlders puts it, a national portrait gallery which would not only illustrate but prove the superiority of the German people.

The book is translated into clear and concise prose. The cover sucks, but can be easily removed.

In a world where the US government evaluates your penchant for atrocity based on how many people named Mohammed you've texted in the last two years, it's good to be reminded of, shall we say, certain pitfalls in this approach.

The premise of tracing images of Hitler is intriguing, and the book lives up to it.

"Hitler's Face - the Biography of an Image" comes in English at the right time in American history, at exactly the time when we (once again) need to learn to interpret the images projected by the media of those who hold power over our nation. From this point of view, "Hitler's Face" is an absolutely essential book; its analysis of physiognomic studies linked with the propagandist aspect of political portrayals is very current.

In general, the English translation reads very smoothly. Some citations from secondary texts were at times difficult to follow, but I imagine they were the best published translations available. And besides, the rest of the text makes up for these sections; a good read.