Wisconsin Books

The is a must for anyone interested in the history of Racine, Wisconsin. The postcard pictures used really capture life in a medium sized Great Lakes port city. The author's notes and comments, for each image used in the book, show his knowledge and passion for the subject matter. Highly recommended.

as a newcomer to the madison, wi area, this map has proven invaluable to me in finding my way around. it is up to date, accurate, easy to use, and most of all....DURABLE. this map is laminated in such a way that you can fold it to expose any given area of the city. you can also mark on it with dry erase markers to mark spots of particular interest. there is a road index to help find where your going (or where you are!) and lots of inset maps of outlying areas of interest. i would recommend one of these city maps wherever you are.

Vollmer is an amazing modern poet. Her work is a breath of fresh air, lyrical and solid. I highly recommend this author.

A wonderful heart-warming array of true short stories depicting experiences from the past. A nostalgic reading for a quiet time to smile, cry, and reminisce.

Artfully designed book with a selection of essays on the midwestern tallgrass prairie, centered on the state of Iowa. Different topics from literary criticism and fine arts to natural and cultural history, including the Ioway Indian landscape. Beautiful illustrations and plates too. A nice gift book for those interested in the tallgrass prairie and the various ways one may follow to better understand it. The essays include:

1. Introduction
2. Prairie Prospects: The Aesthetics of Plainness
3. Walt Whitman's Prairie Paradise
4. On Level Ground: Alexander Gardner's Photographs of the Kansas Prairies
5. Cosmopolitan Vistas: Willa Cather, Hamlin Garland, and the Literary Value of Regionalism
6. Prairie Politics and the Landscape of Reform
7. The Landscape of Jens Jensen
8. Reimagining the Prairie: Aldo Leopold and the Origins of Prairie Restoration
9. Prairie: The Forgotten Flora
10. The Phoenix People of Sod Corn Country
11. Tanji na Che: Recovering the Landscape of the Ioway
12. Natural Systems Agriculture: The Truly Radical Alternative
13. Sizing Up the Country: Contemporary Artists' Perspectives on the Prairie

Highly recommended for those interested in the human and natural history of the tallgrass prairie states.

DeBauche shows that while the U.S. Government used Hollywood to raise enlistments and money, and to encourage home involvement in the war in general, Hollywood also benefitted from its patriotic partnership with the government, both during and after the war.
Above all, though Hollywood was no doubt sincere in its (trumpeted) patriotism, its decision-making was driven by rational evaluation of domestic and foreign markets.
Illustrated, with bibliography and index.

(The numerical rating above is a default setting within Amazon's format. This reviewer does not employ numerical ratings.)

What is textuality at the beginning of the 21st century? What does it mean to have a political culture mediated by the Web, where content can be sliced, diced, and recontextualized by and redistributed by hundreds of web sites? Loizeaux and Fraistat offer a series of essays that address these questions from several perspectives. The first section introduces current issues in textual scholarship. The next section grapples with the materiality of the text, in particular the visual component. The third section pursues relations between textual studies and the fields of cultural studies and postcolonial studies.

The first English translation of history and archaeology professor emeritus Jean-Rene Jannot's "Devins, Dieux et Demons", Religion In Ancient Etruria is a masterful examination of Etruscan religion, closely scrutinizing Etruscan beliefs with regard to death, ritual, and the nature of the gods. Expertly translated by Jane K. Whitehead into a new updated edition, the text offers students, scholars, and general audiences alike an overview of ancient Etruscan beliefs, funerary customs, concepts of an afterlife, and mythology. More than 100 black-and-white illustrations including photographs of Etruscan artifacts add a visual dimension this heavily researched and footnoted perspective. A"must-have", highly accessible account for any reader interested in better understanding the nuances of an ancient civilization's beliefs and the connections between those beliefs and modern theologies.

Fleda Brown's poems contain a lyric gift that lifts our spirits and encourages coontemplative examinations of self and community. This book should be in everyone's Poetry Gift Bag for 2007.

--Robert McDowell is the author of a book on poetry and spiritual practice due out later this year.

In River Life: The Natural And Cultural History Of A Northern River, naturalist and ecologist John Bates takes the reader on a fascinating and informative exploration of Wisconsin's Manitowish River. Packed with historical and environmental information, River Life carefully examines current ecological studies, draws upon fur trader journals and archaeological surveys, and is replete with Bate's own personal observations to vividly describe the "life" of this small northern Wisconsin river. River Life is enthusiastically recommended for students of natural history and river-based ecological systems, and would serve as an ideal template for similar historical and environmental accounts of other small to medium sized rivers throughout the United States.