Society Books

I really enjoyed this essay. I have always been interested in the freedom of the will problem and I thought that this essay provided a good description of the problem and some very interesting discussion. Schopenhauer writes very clearly and in a manner that kept me interested throughout the hundred pages of the essay. Schopenhauer starts out with a consideration of what is meant by "freedom of the will." He considers the statement that "I can do what I will" to be irrelevant to the question of freedom of the will since he says that "...the will is already presupposed...for it assumes that the will has already been decided." He goes on to say, "The assertion does not at all speak about the dependence or independence of the occurrence of the act of volition itself."

The real question that Schopenhauer seems to be interested in is whether an individual can will what he or she wills; he does not think that this is the case. Schopenhauer arrives at the opinion that "...man's will is his authentic self, the true core of his being...he himself is as he wills and wills as he is" such that, "You can do what you will, but in any given moment of your life you can will only one definite thing and absolutely nothing other than that one thing." He then goes on to talk about causality and what compels the will to act in one way or another (i.e., motives) always coming back to what he sees as a confusion when people use the fact that they can do what they will as an argument for free will. Schopenhauer argues that an individual's statement of "...`I can do this' is in reality a hypothetical and carries with it the additional clause, `if I did not prefer the other.' But this addition annuls the ability to will." Schopenhauer considers the notion of an uncaused cause to be unintelligible and at variance with observation. "If freedom of the will were presupposed, every human action would be an inexplicable miracle--an effect without a cause...here we are supposed to think something which determines without being determined, which depends on nothing, but on which the other depends."

One question that often comes up when talking about the absence of freedom of will is "What then happens to individual responsibility?" Schopenhauer answers this by saying that people are responsible for their own characters and that others judge individuals based on the outward signs (actions) that belie their inward character. "So the responsibility of which he is conscious falls upon the act only provisionally and ostensibly, but basically it falls upon his character--for this he feels responsible. And it is for his character that the others also make him responsible." So then Schopenhauer seems to be saying that people are judged based on their actions and underlying motives since these together show evidence of their true nature.

On a somewhat unrelated note, Schopenhauer's relationship with Hegel seems less than cordial as evidenced by his discussing Hegel's philosophical ponderings as "the emptiest word rubbish and silliest gallimathias [the word means nonsense or gibberish] that have ever been heard outside the insane asylum." For some reason, this passage made me laugh such that I wanted to include it in this review. It makes me thankful that my professional relationships have not yet reached such a level of colorful language. At any rate, I enjoyed this essay very much and would recommend it to others who are interested in a freedom of the will discussion.

For those who are convinced that determinism has been refuted (ie. Popper, Sartre, Kierkegarrd) it is quite obvious that they haven't read this essay because if they had they might put their own presuppositions about the validity of free will into question.
Schopenhauer does a fantastic job at dissecting the concept of the 'freedom of the will' by first showing that it cannot be proven from self-consciounsess. He follows this by meticulously distinguishing between the changes that occur in inorganic objects (cause), plants (stimulus), and animals(intuitive and particularly for humans, abstract motives). He points out that in regards to the automatic organic function of animals bodies, changes occur in the form of a "stimulus" but in willed action motivation is the cause (but not in the mechanical sense that the narrow definition of casaulity implies). Schopenhauer writes, in regards to motivation, "causality that passes through cognition... enters in the gradual scale of natural beings at that point where a being which is more complex, and thus has more manifold needs, was no longer able to satisfy them merely on the occasion of a stimulus that must be awaited, but had to be in a position to choose, seize, and even seek out the means of satisfaction."

Schopenhauer thinks that humans have "relative freedom" but that relative freedom is to act in accordance with the motives that are necessitated by the Will-- which in turn is the determining factor of human behavior. In humans the linkage of cause and effect is of a far greater distance than that of intuitive animals-- causing us to mistakingly exclude our behavior from the law of casaulity-- but in the end 'the Will' still determines actions by what he calls "sufficient necessitiy".

"For he (human beings) allows the motives repeatedly to try their strength on his will, one against the other. His will is thus put in the same position as that of a body that is acted on by different forces in opposite directions - until at last the decidedly strongest motive drives the others from the field and determines the will. This outcome is called decision and, as a result of the struggle, appears with complete necessity."

Unlike Sartre's treatise on freedom, which ultimately collapsed into obscurity and contradiction, Scophenhauer's rightly contends that a fixed essence is inborn (what we would today call DNA). In other words, it contradicts Sartre's saying that "existence precedes essence." For Schopenhauer, neither precedes the other. The two are inseparable. The expression of the essence can change through experience within the environment but the fundamental aspects of it remain instrinsic to the organism (Genes/Biology). Schopenhauer responds to the proponents of absolute free will, who haven't carefully analyzed what it means for the 'will' to be free, by writing: "Closely considered, the freedom of the will means an existentia without essentia; this is equivalent to saying that something is and yet at the same time is nothing, which again means that it is not and thus is a contradiction." So my guess is that if Sartre had happened to stumble upon this particular essay he might have realized that it was he who was in "bad faith" about man being condemned to be free.

It should also be noted that if Schopenhauer is wrong about mans intrinsic nature then all of the social sciences are a fraud and particularly psychology is wrong when it takes genes, biology, and the environment into consideration when interpreting and analyzing human behavior.

The reason people object to philosophical determinism is that it makes morality and personal responsibility a precarious thing. One valuable thing we can adopt from Sartre's ideas is that it is imperative that we take responsibility for our choices. But being that pragmatism is the philosophy of the U.S. and not existentalism, it is more than likely the masses will always assume that Free Will exists because the stability of civil society depends on it. In light of all of this it should be mentioned that Schopenhauer does not think that people can't be morally reformed. In other words he thinks that the expression of behavior can be cultivated. Many people credit Nietzsche for coming up with the idea of sublimation that would later be used by Freud, but it was actually Schopenhauer who was the first speak of the idea.

"Cultivation of reason by cognitions and insights of every kind is morally important, because it opens the way to motives which would be closed off to the human being without it."

Schopenhauer also condemns a moral system that tries to root out the defects of a person's character rather than utilizing sublimation.

For those who consider this type of philosophy immoral because it seems to exclude the possibility of moral responsibility we should remember that in Christianity there is the concept of predesination, and in Islam there is a religious fatalism. On top of that fact, many of the church fathers (Augustine and Luther) didn't accept the notion of free will either.

I highly recommend this book!

Almost everyone agrees that - here, Schopenhauer made a convincing case for denying free-will. Nevertheless, I would argue that if we look back to the influence Kant's work exerted on Schopenhauer, and review Schopenhauer's own remarks about the validity of empirical knowledge, it must surely be that Schopenhauer landed himself in difficulties. On his own reading of Kant's philosophy, and those parts of it which he incorporated into his own work, the 'willing' subject, sensu strictu, cannot be said to exist in space and time, but only to be working through those categories in the understanding.

If time and space are transcendentally ideal - as Schopenhauer asserted, following Kant, he ought to have known better than to locate the 'will' in time and space, when according to his own reckoning, 'time and space are in us.'

Kant distinguished here, between 'will' and 'willkuhr' - that is, the practical difference between the will grounded in the noumenon, and the will seen in its phenomenal or empirical
employment. Insofar as Schopenhauer adopted Kant's distinction between appearance and reality, viz. the ideality of time and space, it surely follows that by denying free-will, Schopenhauer was denying a key element in his own philosophy. In short, his argument against 'free-will' amounts to a simplistic observation - namely, 'your willing takes place in the empirical world. The empirical world is conditioned. Ergo, your willing is conditioned' - as if he had suddenly forgotten everything else said in his philosophy, about the ideality of time and space.

By arguing that 'free will' - in the empirical manifold, is simply comparative or relative - viz., when confronted with choices - Schopenhauer was stating the obvious. In this respect, Schopenhauer's position was not unlike that of certain early Buddhists, who almost made Buddhism into a form of determinism. To do that, they had to advocate a kind of empirical realism, while denying any reality to the 'pudgala.' But in actual fact, Schopenhauer's position vis-a-vis the ideality of the phenomenal world, more nearly resembled the Vijnanavada/Yocacara. What mattered to Kant (and what surely matters to anyone else, defending the case for free-will), is that considered as noumenon (i.e. our unconditioned nature), that which can initiate a new chain of events - in the phenomenal world, is not - in itself, phenomenal.

We are free when we are able do what we want, that is, when we are not somehow impeded from doing what we will to do. But we decide what to do as a matter of causal necessity; otherwise, our actions would be random and senseless. The notion that we have the power to originate the causal chain by an act of will makes no sense; as Schopenhauer says, causation is not like a cab that you can start and stop wherever it helps your argument. As he notes, that point also defeats cosmological arguments about "prime movers" and "first causes." This is a great read, a chance to experience a first-class mind grappling with a difficult and interesting problem. Schopenhauer generally even avoids his usual bitter broadsides and against Schelling and Hegel and the sort of philosophizing they represent, although those are fun to read and generally on target. (He lost another, later prize because his essay in that case, although the only candidate for the prize, was so full of personal invective that the judges refused to make the award.)

Another reviewer correctly notes that Schopenhauer undermines his own argument at the last minute, or tries to, in a strange concluding chapter. There he argues that our feelings of personal responsibility for our actions points to freedom of some kind, a species of argument that he had earlier dismantled. Anyway, this freedom would have to exist beyond the empirical level, as his arguments have decisively eliminated any possibility of freedom there. The position Schopenhauer presents in that chapter involves the idea that we, somehow, choose our own characters at some mysterious point of emergence from the Kantian noumena. No commentator I have read has been able to make sense of it. In any case, it's completely skippable, a brief, tacked-on chapter that makes no difference for the rest of the book, which is very well worth reading.

The title of my review is a little misleading, so I'll be quick to explain. In fact, Schopenhauer does make a good case for determinim in his essay. However, there is something noteworthy I haven't seen in any of the reviews so far: At the end of the well-crafted essay, Schopenhauer -- well -- spoils it all. Having established the truth of determinism, he suddenly tries to justify free will. Yes, that's true. He appeals to a Kantian style idealism to try and convince the reader that we are ultimately morally responsible. He asserts that we have metaphysical free will because we FEEL our responsibility. His proclamation that this free will that we are supposed to have is a mystery is strikingly reminiscient of theistic statements like "God works in mysterious ways". This is just an example to illustrate the failure of Schopenhauer's case for free will. In order to defend his free will, "real free will", Schopenhauer is forced to resort to mere assertions. He can't explain why we have this free will or how it works, hence he calls it a mystery. If you are a determinist it may well be that you will feel a little betrayed or even outright disappointed after finishing the book. I give the book 4 stars nonetheless, because for the most part it IS a skillfully written defense of determinism. Schopenhauer should have laid aside his pen a couple of pages earlier than he did, that's all.

My husband and I recently heard a taped interview with Father Boyle that aired on NPR. We were very interested in learning more about his unique outreach efforts with LA Gang members. This book is excellent.

"G-Dog and the Homeboys" shows how Father Greg Boyle and a select few adults, including the author, completely changed the lives of teens in East LA. Greg opened the homies' and his followers' eyes to the world outside of their lives in their little neighborhood. Many kids would not think past selling drugs to earn a little extra cash, or firing off a couple of rounds of bullets in order to simply stay alive. Boyle changed all of this.
In actuality, the homies were not violent, cruel, or evil kids at heart. Many had rotten home lives and joined gangs to find love. Others joined for protection. Gangs offered support if they were ever in serious danger.
Father Greg understood and felt for these teens. Greg lent them helping hand in any way he could. He gave them money for school, jobs, even a roof over their heads. However, the best gift he gave the homies was his love and caring for them.
As one follows the stories of numerous homies, one realizes how much of an impact one man, Father Greg, had on their lives. This story is touching, at times frightening, and over all, enlightening. It is highly recommended that you read "G-Dog and the Homeboys". Your eyes, too, will be opened to the world around you.

Although I have not read this book, I did watch a lecture by Father Boyle given at Regis University. It is amazing what he has accomplished in LA with these gang members. It is a true testament to what God can do if given the chance!

This book is quite unlike any other that I have read on crime or gangs, both in style and in substance.

The style is very simple. Fremon makes no attempt to be objective. She makes no effort to put the story into any larger context. She does not come across like a professional writer of any kind. Her ego is absent from the work. Instead, she tells a story, a simple, moving story.

The subject of her story is extraordinary. John Paul II liked to say that there are many more saints around us then we recognize. This story is another example of that. Father Greg Boyle is a normal suburban white guy who became a priest, and was sent to East LA. He found himself surrounded by gang violence. Nothing unusual in the story so far.

But his reaction was extraordinary. He responded to the situation in a radically Christian manner. He did not get into any of the usual left wing politics or posturing. Instead, he offered the gang members uncondititional love, just as the Gospel teaches. He spent time with them. He visited them in jail. He visited them in the hospital. Whenever the guns went off, he was there trying to bring peace. In one extraordinary incident, he put himself between two gangs who were starting a fire fight, and told them that if they wanted to kill each other, they would have to kill him. He was risking his life doing this, and the gang members knew it. They did not shoot; his Christian witness brought them back from their madness.

It took time, but the gang members responded to Father Greg's ministry with tremendous enthusiasm and love. It is an incredibly inspiring story. It reminds us of why we are Christians. It shows us the transforming power of Christian love.

I would like to be able to draw some political conclusions from all of this. I would like to somehow replace our current approach to gangs with Father Greg's approach. I do not know how to do that. I can not see how to make his saintly approach work in ordinary political or police work. But I do know that we are all better people with someone like him among us. If we had more like him, the world would be healed.

A wonderful read that can be shared with reluctant readers to bring them face to face with their place in modern literature. A book that should be shared with more teenagers. A look at gang life/ prisons in our urban world through the eyes of someone on a shared journey. I shared this book and another series that Celeste wrote in LA Weekly (2005) with my students as a combination class: experience of life literature and morality. Father Boyle is a master at understanding humanity and our call to larger social responsibility. We are not permitted to dismiss the world around us after reading this book that tugs at the corners of your heart. Greg gives hope where it is needed the most - to everyone. If the opportunity to hear Father Greg Boyle speak presents itself, do yourself a favor and go.

This is an eye-opening, honest, and thoughtful examination of the role the military plays in our society. It is obvious that Lutz has thoroughly and carefully studied Fayetteville, NC, and she has delivered a powerfully written document of the effects an army base has had on the community. What makes this a brilliant work is that it invites the reader to consider the many arenas of our culture which have been influenced, even created, by the military complex we have embraced as our defense. Homefront is an extremely important book.

Catherine Lutz has once again taken us beneath the surface to get a first hand look at the powerful forces shaping America's psyche, forces so interwined in our lives that they have become almost invisble. But with the anthropologist's trained eye, Professor Lutz helps us to see that in this time of calls for military protection for every parade and football game across the country, a call which many are ready to support, we will be paying a bill on many dimensions. Her careful and thoughtful analysis in the works long before the tragic events of 9/11, is more important than ever in helping us understand the larger consequences of our reponse. It is not easy to ask unpopular questions, but I am thankful for the skill and rigor Lutz brought to the task

While President Eisenhower warned about the Military Industrial Complex in the United States, one could argue that what is more troubling is the military cultural complexion of the United States. Catherine Lutz makes this argument forcibly in Homefront: A Military City and the American 2oth Century.
Lutz uses Fayetteville, North Carolina as a microcosm to examine the quotidian and epochal influences arising from America's military in times or war and peace. Homefront is the result of intensive data collection and wide ranging interviews. Lutz masterfully combines the two to tell a story of the city and its people that are always interconnected with the ever-widening influence of the U.S. military in the past century.6.
Using the prisms of race, class, and gender, Lutz deconstructs the image of the military as the defender of the American Way. She inverts the paradigm to show that often the presence of the military reinforces existing divisions. Fayetteville is an army town. Throughout the last century it was also a town that experienced Jim Crow, increased domestic violence, hate crimes, and a widening gap between the haves and the underclass. Lutz also documents that the spit-shine image of the Army often camouflages environmental degradation resulting from base operations. Homefront tells the story of the costs-both quantifiable and hidden-to the United States of becoming and remaining the planet's only superpower.
Lutz sets each of her six chapters within an identifiable era for Fayetteville and the U.S. military. The book begins with the opening of Fort Bragg in 1918. This period is, as David Blight argues in Race and Reunion, formed by the previous half century of American mythmaking that raises both the soldier and the South to places of honor in the national psyche. Homefront details how the perception of heroism often conflicts with the local experience of oppression. As Lutz herself writes, when recounting the history of former slave John Nichols-who refused to leave the land that was to become Fort Bragg, "[T]his story is structured around the time's stereotypes." Indeed, throughout the book the presence of the Army is often described by Fayetteville's residents in archetypal terms.
Lutz calls Fayetteville a company town. Because the army is the base for economic activity, the long-time residents of Fayetteville both love and fear it. Lutz describes how already well-off whites have reaped great wealth from the development that Fort Bragg created. She also describes how the city's inability to broaden its industrial base has left poor whites and most blacks working retail jobs with some of the lowest pay scales in North Carolina. In addition, the presence of thousands of young men has created another economy-where sex is the commodity. Sex workers represent the underside of the military culture that envelops a military town. Homefront is direct in examining that underside.
Lutz's voice is clear throughout the book (even when examining the negative effects of World War II-"the good war"). And her critique resonates strongly in the current climate. As Lutz states several places in her book, a military definition of the situation is essential to the military project. The military and its supporters thrive on an us versus them paradigm. Most of the public embraces this paradigm.
Two letters to the editor in the August 28, 2002 Wall Street Journal excoriated the subject of a story who resisted operations at a nearby military base because he thought the base was a detriment to his neighborhood. One letter-writer accused the subject of being more concerned with his lifestyle than his fellow countrymen's security. A letter published in the September 1, 2002 Raleigh News and Observer went even further. In response to someone who questioned the presence of the Junior ROTC on a local high school campus, the letter writer commented: "What's wrong with our children having the same values as, say, George Washington . . . Ulysses S. Grant . . . or Dwight D. Eisenhower." Lutz warns that such conflating of all things military with heroism and leadership is exactly the problem with the cultural complexion that looks back at most Americans in our national mirror. And though Lutz book was finished before 9-11, her research helps explain much of the reaction and rhetoric that has met anyone who questions our current policy in the war on terror or toward removing Saddam Hussein.
My own critiques of Lutz's book are mainly on two fronts. First, her work seems to intentionally avoid the role of religion in Fayetteville and in the broader national discussion. Early on she quotes a minister who states in 1923: "It is a pleasure to record that the relationship between the church and the government as represented in the authorities at Fort Bragg has been most cordial." But aside from the arrival of a Quaker House during the Vietnam years, Lutz does not detail the ebb and flow of the relationship. It seems a dramatic lacuna. The relationship of religion to the military, especially in the South, was pivotal during much of the 20th Century. In fact, I remember that Fayetteville was a regular venue for evangelical gatherings-often Billy Graham-in the 60s and 70s.
Second, the scope of Lutz's work occasionally confuses issues. Because she is focusing on both individual anecdotal evidence and metalanguage, the arguments do not always match. For instance, her work in Fayetteville convinces her that "civilian is the majority, dominant category," but there is "widespread acceptance of a military definition of the situation." For those of us accustomed to identifying the dominant category by determining who has the power to define the situation, these two explanations seem mutually exclusive.
However, my complaints pale in comparison to my admiration. Catherine Lutz has given me-and I believe this will be true for all readers-a new prism through which to view our national military culture. In Fayetteville and throughout the United States, we have met the enemy and they are us.

Homefront is brilliant, incisive and chilling. Catherine Lutz is among the finest of story-tellers and ethnographers of contemporary America. With an anthropologist's eye for detail in the everyday, to a social theorist's eye for the big picture, Homefront is written with passion and intelligence. This book goes a long way in enhancing the readers' understanding of the culture of militarism that is so integral to the present moment. This is definitely a must-read!

Residents of Fayetteville, North Carolina awoke one morning in April of 1954 to find the front page of their local paper carrying news of a nuclear attack downtown; they were informed that sixty-four thousand soldiers were being deployed to amend the situation, aided by six tons of maps and forty-six chaplains. The attack, of course, was a fiction, but the soldiers and their simulated nuclear reaction mission (Exercise Flash Burn) were very real. Catherine Lutz demonstrates in Homefront: A Military City that the life of Fayetteville cannot disentangle itself from the life of Fort Bragg, the nation's largest military base. This study by the renowned anthropologist from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is both as specific as a city history and as broad as a national story. Though Lutz uses Fayetteville as a zooming-in point, her argument-that the dichotomies of military and civilian, war-time and peace-time, are collapsing-is applicable to the country as a whole.
Fayetteville, a city of one hundred thousand semi-affectionately known as "Fayettenam," was chosen as the centerpiece for this project because of its long and bittersweet relationship with Fort Bragg. Lutz traces this history from 1918 (when the city's founding fathers first lured the lucrative industry to the collective pocketbook of the townsfolk), through the patriotism and turmoil of the World Wars and the bitter clashes of the Vietnam War, to the present-day Hot Peace. Relations between the base and the city are both interdependent and strained so that, upon the close inspection Lutz conducts, it becomes unclear where the line between the two is drawn, if indeed it can be drawn at all. Lutz describes Fayetteville's economy as engineered to serve the needs of soldiers on paydays. While other North Carolina cities chose technology industries as their major source of income, Fayetteville cast its lot with the base and the retail sales it would create. This plan has had the two-fold effect of making the few who own the businesses quite rich and the many who work in them, merely touching the money as it passes from soldier to civilian businessman, rather poor. The question of who is serving whom (soldiers training to protect the lives of civilians while civilians tend to soldiers' needs) becomes blurred, as does the question of whom is actually receiving the government paychecks. Further blurring the dichotomy between military and civilian are the many civilians whose presence in Fayetteville is attributable to the military-for instance, the refugees who have come from all over the world, and the "war brides" who moved to Fayetteville with their soldier husbands and settled down. Lutz posits that the draft further lessened the gap between military and civilian by presenting a difficulty in readily distinguishing between the two; the idea that soldiers were lower-class, uneducated, and crass was prominent prior to the World Wars, but suddenly college boys from good families were moving into the base, and some soldiers were the type of boys by whom local upper-middle-class families might want their daughters courted. Another assumed intrinsic difference between soldiers and civilians-that soldiers always see war as the right course of action whereas civilians are more peace-loving-fell during the Vietnam War, when thousands of soldiers protested the United States' involvement and eventually brought about the military's departure from Vietnam. As the differences between soldiers and civilians have become blurred, so have the differences between formerly binary options of war and peace.
Though hegemonic history usually describes time as a series of wars and their interstices, Lutz finds the concepts of war-time and peace-time becoming ever more complicated. While war was formerly viewed as an interference upon the normal state of peace, the periods between war are now filled with preparedness for war, making war the natural state. War games are one, often bizarre, aspect of this war readiness. Obscuring not only the distinctions between war and peace but also those between Fayetteville and Fort Bragg, homefront and battlefield, are the situations in which Fort Bragg's training missions take them into the city in the acting out of a war situation. Though Fayetteville's civilians are notified when the soldiers will be rehearsing for nuclear holocaust or an invasion of "Pineland" (the imaginary country in which Fayetteville lies during war games), such realm-blending upsets traditional ideas of what war is and where it takes place. The Cold War also called into question the nature of war, since only recently has it been true that one can exist in which no blood is shed. Lutz contrasts this state with the current one of Hot Peace-even when the United States is not technically at war, the military is active on peace-keeping missions internationally, assisting insurgents or established governments in the protection of America's best interests.
Homefront is meticulously researched in all manner of sources. Largely ethnographic, Lutz's research consists largely of interviews conducted with eighty residents of Fayetteville over a six year period. Lutz's interviewees include not only the traditional writers of history, but also those whose stories are often left to fall silent-the result is a less favorable military history than the red, white, and blue ones usually heard. The recounts of these interviews have an informal feel to them, occasionally interjected with questions from Lutz and usually accompanied by the interviewees' actual names and personal, unposed photographs. This very human approach should not be seen as a substitute for heavily researched scholarship-Lutz is adept at providing both. Also cited are records from Fort Bragg itself, as well as reports found in the National Archives, local newspaper accounts from the turn of the century, and history books of North Carolina. Lutz allows her subjectivity to shine through the text-though raised in a military family, her horror at the effects of war on all involved are apparent, and it is clear with whom her sympathies lie. With such a well-researched argument, however, Lutz's agenda is incapable of falling through the cracks of substantiation. In the end, Lutz presents a compelling picture of Fayetteville/Fort Bragg as one town, under a base, indivisible.

I almost fell over in my chair when I found this book was still selling. I believe I purchased it over 30 years ago. It really is an amazing book and leads one to believe they really could live a relatively simple lifestyle.

My life in the intervening 30 years has not been simple. For some reason, one of the main things I remember from this book was after delivering your baby through natural childbirth, which I did in a hospital, you can either bury the placenta or cook and eat it to restore your strength. It really takes one back to another era, a time when we all thought everything was possible. Then the 80's came upon us and it was all over.

For anyone who is interested in sewing, another of my favorite books of that time is "Son Of Hassele-Free Sewing". It explains in a simple manner how to copy clothing you already own to make new clothes. It is an excellent book, which I still refer to.

Peace.

This is one of the best books EVER written. It has helped me to survive and thrive on this Earth and gives me advice on practically anything I need to know! Perfect for those who need to settle down and be more in tune with their bodies and Mother Nature. Alicia Bay Laurel is an amazing artist, activist, and author that I look up to much indeed.

After waking very early this very morning, I started to read Living on the Earth and was halfway through by breakfast. While I had considered a hand-lettered book to be more difficult to read, I could not have been more wrong.

The hand lettering brought a sense of comfort and the contents reminded me of my childhood in Africa. If you lived in a rural area during the 60s and 70s, many of the items in this book will be very familiar. If you love handwritten letters from friends, then this book will quickly find a place in your heart.

So, there I was stirring a 5-grain oatmeal mixture for breakfast and I looked down and caught a glimpse of my painted toes reflecting in the glass oven door. Suddenly I was transported to the years of my childhood where we build our own tree houses, watched carrots grow, milked cows, raised chickens, learned how to sew, experienced tick bite fever and snacked on friendship cake while walking barefoot on the warm earth.

Living on the Earth is an enchanting read filled with lyricism and whimsy. It is written in a spontaneous style and the topics range from soap making to building rocking cradles out of barrels. Alicia Bay Laurel has illustrated the entire book and it is a completely personal experience.

Some of the highlights include backpacking tips, making hammocks with macramé, making your own soaps, sewing peasant blouses, making your own moccasins, and building a kiln for making pottery.

There is also information on how to make candles, bamboo flutes, bean bags, clothing, rose petal jam, organic diet soda, vanilla extract, dried fruits, nut butters, ice cream, sunflower milk, miso, roasted soy beans, smoked fish, bread, beef jerky, sour dough starter, steamed acorns, plum pudding and herbal tinctures.

As I sit here with my lovely cozy heated blanket and fluffy slippers I can dream about living out in the wild as my washing machine swishes about with the Seventh Generation laundry soap I recently found at a health food store. This book has many ideas you can incorporate into your normal home life. You don't have to live in a commune to enjoy the information about essential oils, nature-inspired products or environmental issues. The author recommends things like hemp paper and explores the many uses of apple cider vinegar and pumpkin seeds.

To say the least, I was intrigued. This is definitely a must-read book for everyone interested in natural remedies. There are recipes for making herbal tinctures and you may find yourself looking for "myrrh." If you love to cook you may be intrigued by the recipe for Plum Pudding.

Alicia Bay Laurel is writing a modern sequel for the global family. "Still Living on the Earth" will be published in 2005. This book was updated in 1999 and is filled with useful addresses and websites. I loved the list of "more books that are still valuable 30 years later!" A helpful index completes this fun guide to living on the earth.

I loved reading this book! While reading you may find yourself becoming nostalgic, enthusiastic about hiking or even making lists to buy a variety of herbs.

~The Rebecca Review

I discovered this book in a book store about a week ago. It was $18.95 and sold out! I went home to Amazon and found them here for $5.99!! I bought 15 copies for X mas presents and a few just to have for emergency purposes. This book is not only filled with amazing ways to live a better life here its also filled with beautiful illustrations. This is one book I will use forever and pass on for generations to come. No matter if its 1969 or 2069, this hippie bible will always come in handy!

Amazing to think that she was a teenager when she began writing this "Bible" of natural living. Not only does it still hold up after 30+ years...but it makes even more sense now in the 21st century.
I would give it to my children or grandparents with equal enthusiasm.
Alicia Bay gets the ultimate hippie chick award!

I have already been blogging, but this book helped me focus my efforts in a way that may help my business. Lots of great insightful info, and common sense explanations in this book. I found it very helpful and easy to read.

I need a blog for the homebuilt aircraft community, particularly those working with composite (fiberglass) technology. I work alone and will require additional help with developing a good active blog. This book has helped me to ask the right questions of the professional IT type who must help me get the blog going.

Blogging isn't just for the chatty consumer: not with the appearance of PUBLISH & PROSPER: BLOGGING FOR YOUR BUSINESS. Here it turns into a viable approach for furthering business, coming from business owners who offer real-world techniques and ideas to blog to improve business. Learn how to start such a blog and build momentum and interest to promote a brand, products, or customer relations. The authors have extensive background in the blogging world and in business alike and have put their premises to the test, so this offers realistic ideas already applied to solid business pursuits.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

DL Byron and Steve Broback have really done an excellent job in writing this very thorough primer on blogging for business. The book, actually, is more than a mere primer: its breadth is surprising. They've managed to cover virtually every aspect of business blogging in a mere 180 pages. Quite an accomplishment and one the authors can certainly take pride in.

The approach is linear, beginning with an explanation of what a blog is, determining the focus of your business blog, the varieties of blog, design, tools for blogging, writing the blog, getting noticed, monitoring and managing and ending chapter on syndication and other fine points they refer to as "beyond blogging".

What is impressive is how much solid information the authors manage to convey without overwhelming the reader. The writing style is comfortable and spare. They avoid technical language and do a good job of explaining each point.

Overall this is one of the best books on blogging I've seen. It is practical, not theoretical and the authors left dogma and cant at the door. They are clear that blogs are not miraculous but can certainly help a company advance toward its goals.

Well done and a worthwhile read that will serve as a quick reference after you've read it.

Jerry

As a longtime blogger and an entrepreneur I approached this title from New Riders with interest. I was happy to find out a wide range of information that I immediately put to good use in my own blogs. Interestingly enough, though the focus of the book is on blogging for businesses, the elements it presents are not limited to the business world. As a matter of fact, there at times throughout the book that you forget about the title of the book and get sunk into it due to the usefulness of the knowledge the authors share from their experience.

The framework Byron and Broback offer makes perfect sense, taking the reader through a natural progression to make sure the resulting blog is a success. From determining the focus of the blog, how much to write and how to design and implement it; to getting down to the task of posting, getting traffic and monitoring it, the book is thorough in spite of the fact of being less than 200 pages in length.

So, if you are considering to start a blog for your business, do yourself a favor and read this book before. I suspect you will thank me for it!

the fact that this is another black animal attacking white people. Do you not feel hatred for this beast? I read about crap like this happening every day and i am sick of it, arent you people? When are you going to wake up and quit allowing the media to make these oh so common attacks seen like no big deal when if the perpetrator was white the WHOLE WORLD WOULD KNOW about it.

This country is sick and its because of all of the yellow bellied white people who are too cowardly to do anything about these animals.

Excuse me i need to go vomit.

I have read mixed reviews for this book, so decided to read for myself to get an opinion. This was a well written book that seems to really get to the facts of what happened and portrays the very seriousness of this attack and the process of recovery. Debra Puglisi Sharp is an extremely strong woman who in writing this book will certainly help to aid in providing stength to others who have been through similar situations. Kudos to Debra for having the strength not only to survive this attack but to write her account of the attack and recovery to help others.

This is the true story of Debra Puglisi Sharp. A survivor of a horrific and violent crime she tells in detail what it was like to go through her unthinkable ordeal.

A very sad and moving account. I thought this book was well done and easy to read.

Shattered is a gripping story about the day that Debra Puglisi's life changed forever. While out planting her new roe bushes, Donald Flagg sneaks into her house, shoots her husband and rapes Debra. He then kidnaps her and keeps her for 5 days while her children and family are questioned as to the stability of their home and the possibility that their mother killed their father. During those 5 days, Debra is beaten, raped and left to believe that she will die eventually. After 5 days she manages to get free of her ropes that bind her and call 911 for help. That is the beginning of a long road to recovery. This is an amazing tale of strength and courage against all odds of an everyday woman. A very inspiring story and one that I believe every person that has been the victim of violence should read.

I remember the very first time I read Shattered...I could not stop crying as I read. I cried for the loss of Nino, for Michael and Melissa, for Debbie and the rest of her family...I cried tears of genuine sadness, grief, and longing; I cried tears of hope and renewal. This book is very well-written, in very much the same style as if you sat down and talked to Debbie, or attended one of her many speaking engagements...

I believe this is a must-read for all victims of sexual abuse and/or assault, however, it will trigger thoughts and feelings you believed you dealt with--it did for me. By no means let that stop you, though...

I have read this book many, many times since then, and each time I thanked God for my dear friend Debbie Sharp and the courage He blessed her with.

If you ordered it in the first place, you either like puppies or bought it for someone who likes puppies. So, what's there not to like?

I HAVE BEEN BUYING THIS CALENDER EVERY YEAR FOR AT LEAST 5 YEARS. BEAUTIFUL PICTURES. I ENJOY IT ALL YEAR.

I have the 365 Puppy calendar and it's so cute! I was wondering if anyone knew of a website where you can enter your dog in the contest?

it was the best book i have ever read. in ny intire life and i hope my kids and grandkids all grow up to love it. it was such an insparation to me because my dog was hit by a car 10 years ago his name was Leo. Perhaps you heard of what happened . I helped me get on with my life and get a new life.

I am very happy with this calendar. Lots and lots of puppies, and a different puppy for each day of the month. Each day also gives you some room to write appointments, birthdays, reminders, etc. I also like how this calendar doesn't focus on seasons so much as some calendars I've had in the past. The June puppy has sunglasses on, and July is patriotic, but I'm so glad I don't have a puppy surrounded by ice and snow with ice cycles hanging off his ears on the December page. It just gives us lots of puppies to look at, and that is fine and dandy with me.

This is one of the best books I have ever read, Abby and the rest of the BSC help at a club, and then the action starts. I thought they were mean not to let certain people get in. But the rest is O.K.!

This is my second Baby Sitters Club i hate! It is only a a murder of a reporter.

It was my seventh mystery read. The first 5 mysteries were just borrowed and the sixth one was the first I bought.I was discouraged by that, I never bought any mystery any more.But mom seemed to like it rather than the other books I read.So she gave me one for my birthday.I liked it because Abby and I both have asthma and a mom that works far from home. Idecided to collect as many as I can of these mysteries.I now have all up to mystery #28.I stareted collectin this since my birthday last month.

When Abby discovers that there is a mysterius past about Stonybrooks new country club the, "Baby Sitters Club," decides that they should find out about it. This book is fast paced, exciting, and readers of all ages will enjoy it. It is also a must read for those young detectives out there.

Abby hates February, too hot for some things and too cold for others which is why she decides to help renovate dark woods to greenwoods . She finds out about a secret society at Dark woods and the death of a journalist who was looking into the secret society. Then it becomes more than a February distraction. I would recommend this book to all ages because it is not complicated and is easy to follow but i think it was a bit unrealistic at times.I would rate it 41/2. A great book on the whole.

Linda's technique of bended bias REALLY enhances the look of the applique. It outlines the peice and also gives a 3-D effect. Good pictures and instructions.

Thanks to Linda Poole, I have used this easy technique to finish a stained glass memorial quilt for my father. The duck pond comes to life with the addition of thin bias outlines. My quilt took second place at the fair. Thanks again Linda for GREAT INSPIRATION and USEFUL text. Next I'm planning an Irish Celtic Quilt for a special ladyfriend.

I have enjoyed Linda's book immensely. I found it to be very informative and the instructions were especially easy to follow, step by step. The photographs were very helpful, clear and colorful. This technique is easy, fun and adds life and depth to your quilt. I would highly recommend it to anyone that wants to try something new and exciting.

Bended Bias Appliqué by Linda M. Poole is a must have for every quilters' library. Linda walks you through every step of the bias process. Bias appliqué adds a real punch to any quilt and Linda makes it easy to do. The pictures are clear and the instructions are easy to understand.

The quilts are absolutely stunning. I particularly love the dragonfly and hummingbird quilts. Also of particular interest are the directions for shaping your Celtic swirls before appliquéing them to your background. What a marvelous idea!

I am thrilled to have Bended Bias Appliqué in my library and am eagerly looking forward to the release of Linda's new book "Quilted Fairie Tales."

Linda Poole's latest book about using bias binding is just incredible. Her techniques make it so easy to create beauty! I especially like the simplicity of making complicated looking Celtic designs. Her instructions on making your own bias are super and really save a lot of money. Plus....you can exactly match or contrast your project with the exact bias you want. A really must have book for the appliquer, or person wanting to learn applique. Her patterns are great, or you can use her techniques with your own designs.

I've been looking for a book on private structures, not public buildings or houses by famous architects but living places of everyday people. I couldn't imagine anything this amazing. Dwelling from all over the world. Places you would never see unless you traveled to the far reaches of our earth. I am thrilled to have found this book.

For a number of years, Yoshio and Eiko Komatsu have been travelling the world taking high quality photographs of traditionally built homes. At first view, many of the photographs while though pleasant are not especially remarkable. However, what makes these many photos special is that they are combined together to tell a story about houses are traditionally built around the world.

The photographs are gathered together in short chapters dealing with building techniques. For example, the first three chapters are entitled, "Hand Coiling or Coursing Wet Earth", "Earthen Blocks", and "Compacted Earth". Along with a cursory explanations of the building technique are numerous color pictures from around the world illustrating the different techniques.

What makes this such a great book is the sheer number of interesting photographs of vernacular architecture. In a sense, this book is a momument to the creativity and artistic talent of the world's people. These photos stimulate the imagination.

Finally, keep in mind this is a photo collection and not an academic text on vernacular architecture. This is not a book on how to build by hand but a creative homage to what people can make with locally available materials and ancient know how. Highly recommended.

superlative book; pictures are top; as I've not enough money to travel in so many places and anyway I'dont want anymore take planes and contribute to pollution that will may kill us; I'm happy to travel with this book and the wonderfullest Dwellings from Paul Oivier. together with too HomeWork from Loyd Kahn, You get the best to study dwellings all over the world and maybe going back to more simplicity and built healthy powerful and sacred places as all dwellings should be !

As books go this one makes it to my top ten. People are always using the word venacular out of context, this book puts it right back. The pictures in this book speak a thousand words. Use whats local, works with materials found around you. I live on an Island on the West coast, lots of rain. There are so many people on this Island building 'green houses' with straw bales. There are so many people who are going to have mouldy homes!!! Venacular learn the word. Live in a home made of the materials around you! Buy this book, and learn.

Owning quite a few Vernacular Building type books, I would say that this rates up there with the best of them. I will not say it is the best though, the reason being is that all of these types of books have their own unique photos that you won't find any where else.

This is a very well produced, easy to read book. It is broken up into 18 sections, with lots of full colour photos from around the world. Each photo also comes with a short explanation.

With 469 pages of beautiful photographs not only showing the architecture, but also the people living in these dwellings, this book is a must have for your Vernacular Library.

Hmmm... I'm looking at the book right now and see that the glue has not done it's job and the binding is falling apart!!! Beware!