Society Books

This book is full of vital information about cults and cult mind control. A must-read for cult survivors. One of the best books on the topic available for the general public.

After leaving a Bible-based cult, I have been hungry for literature specifically addressing the needs of cult survivors. As the title of this book suggests, it was exactly what I was looking for. Although the material can be academic and complex to read at times, this collection of articles from the best minds in the field of cult recovery is priceless. This book is a must-have textbook for cult survivors who are on the mend -- especially those who have been out of their cult for a while and have already read several other books on the subject.

This is a wonderful book with plenty of information to help the person leaving a high-control group or cult. The stages of recovery are discussed so the exiting member knows what kind of "head trips" to expect during the mental detox of cult involvement. I highly recommend it.

This was one of the first books I read after 9 years in a cult, too bad I read it more than a year and a half after I quit (I wish I would`ve found this earlier, right after I left the group I was in). I recommend this to all ex-members of cults, as well as anyone interested in or affected by them; and ESPECIALLY anyone in any group (religious or otherwise) who questions the nature of your group, and has thoughts of leaving. This book is informative, affirmative, and great support for ex-members and their families when you feel like no one else understands what you`ve been through.

Whereas Alcoholics Anonymous does not have leaders who promote their personal programs nor does it cause psychological harm, I was involved in a cult with an extremely controlling and harmful leader. The cult I was involved in fits all the criteria that Dr. Langone describes in this book.

As modern day culture teeters on the brink of collapse, Theobald offers an analysis of the situation and some positive things that people can do.One of his central ideas is that ordinary people can make a difference, if only they have the will to take action and the belief that they can change things.He advocates new ways of thinking about our problems and the future, and working in a co-operative manner is stressed.He has many ideas that are worth serious consideration if we want to avoid catastrophe.

This book lays out in coherent and reality-based form where we are and where we could go to create a world for our children that works. It's a brilliant companion-book to Hartmann's "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight" or Hubbard's "Conscious Evolution." Buy them all and help change the world for the better!

... And how to change it as a citizen. A great base for discussion. A good way to form discussion group. Read it, experience it!

I am come Taiwan.Though I read this book in chinses. it is translate from English.But I still can undertand auther' idea and very approve it.Now I feel that I'm not alone.I hope more people to read it.Through changing people's idea and this world will change.

I was an economics major in college and a practicing republican. Reworking Success challenged my previous learnings and opened my eyes to a world I didn't know existed. Theobald doesn't push his views, he brings you along for a ride that you didn't even know you got on. Recommend highly! Julie in Seattle, Washington

Everyone should own a copy of this little book--even if they don't drink tea! It is a pleasure to read. The short stories are uplifting and spiritual. The recipes for cakes, scones, and tea sandwiches are easy. I don't bake and found them quite easy. I specifically use simple and fast recipes like this for the classroom. You can use this book and its recipes for scones and cakes anywhere.

I love this book! Consider this a tea party idea book delivered in narrative form. In the beginning we meet Sandy, who invites a few of her closest friends to join her Tea Society and host a tea of their own. They each have very different personalities, which provides inspiration for their party themes. Each chapter is dedicated to a character's tea party and is chock filled with recipes, decorating and hostessing ideas, as well as insights into their personal lives. This is a book I will surely treasure and pass on as gifts for the holidays. It is beautifully written and illustrated, and oh so clever!

Enjoy.

This book is a treasure trove for people who don't get "the tea thing". Beautiful artwork accompanies recipes and ideas for creating truly memorable teas. I gave a friend the book, which she read in a day, and called me to say "I want friends like this -- let's be friends like this!"

This is a delightful book full of ideas for wonderful teas to have with friends -- old and new. It's the story of someone bringing together women who don't know each other, but forge a bond through the sharing of tea. It has BEAUTIFUL illustrations and DELICIOUS receipes along with INTERESTING new ideas for sharing tea with friends. A MUST for anyone's tea library!

As an avid tea party lover, I can't say enough about this book. What a treasure indeed. I love the way she tells the story of each character and how she incorporates their personalities into themes for each tea party. The ideas are lovely and I have already used some of the ideas not only for teas, but to give as special gifts to friends. I could not put this book down until I finished it. I will re-read it several times. It is lovely to look at and the story is so charming. Wonderful recipes are a bonus. If you love tea and sharing special moments with friends, this book is for you! I am buying this book for all of my special tea friends!

Karl Popper had one of the broadest ranges of any 20th Century philosopher. He wrote in Epistemology, Philosophy and History of Science, Logic, and Democratic Theory. In each area he wrote trenchantly and with great excellence and imagination. He was the greatest of 20th century philosophers. Why I feel this way can begin to be understood by reading Mark A. Notturno's "Science and the Open Society." Notturno's work is the most valuable gateway to Popper's yet. It is one of those very few books that serve as the core of one's library, that one returns to again and again.

All of the Chapters in "Science and the Open Society" are striking and contain worthwhile insights. As a whole they allow one to think about the corpus of Popper's work and the major themes he developed over the course of 60 years. In fact, Popper himself wrote no single work that would allow us to do that. Notturno, in providing that perspective here, gives us a bird's eye view that we must work much harder to get from Popper's work. If you seek an understanding of Popper, start with Notturno and then read Popper for yourself, with the context you need to actively grasp what Popper presents.

All of the book is valuable, but there are a few Chapters that stand out from my own perspective as a Knowledge Management practitioner. These are Chapter 10 on the choice between Popper and Kuhn, Chapter 7 on the meaning of world 3, Chapter 5, a brilliant account of the breakdown of foundationalism and justificationism and of how Popper's critical rationalism escapes from the problems inherent in these views and provides a basis for solving the problems of induction and demarcation, and Chapter 3 on the significance of critical rationalism for education in open societies. Here is a more detailed review of Chapters 10 and 7.

Chapter 10, "The Choice Between Popper and Kuhn: Truth, Criticism, and the Legacy of Logical Positivism," takes up again the task of proper reconstruction of the nature of science following the breakdown of logical positivism. Notturno shows that Popper and Kuhn took two contrasting roads in journeying from this crossroads of 20th century philosophy. He traces how Kuhn and the many who followed him took the road to relativism, institutionalism, and "political" science, while denying the possibility of external rational critques of governing paradigms. Popper, on the other hand, took the road to thoroughgoing fallibilistic truth-seeking, a path which rejected foundationalism and justificationism, and offered a view of scientific objectivity attained through shared criticism of alternative knowledge claims conjectured as solutions to problems. As Notturno puts it (P. 230): "The issue at base is whether science should be an open or a closed society." Notturno shows that its is Kuhn's choice that leads to the closed society, and Popper's that supports the idea that (P. 248) ". . . our scientific institutions should exist for the sake of the individual - for the sake of our freedom of thought and our right to express it - and not the other way around."

Chapter 7 is a careful account of Popper's controversial notion that there are at least three "worlds" or realms of ontological significance: (1) the material world of tables, atoms, buildings, lamps, etc., (2) the mental world of thoughts, beliefs, emotions, etc. and (3) the "world" of words and language, art, mathematics, music, and other human, non-material, but sharable and autonomous creations. Popper criticized monism, the doctrine that only the physical world exists, and dualism, the idea that there is only mind, matter, and the interaction between them, in favor of a broader interactionism among three realms. This idea has been among the most difficult of notions for people to accept.

To many (including Feyerabend and Lakatos who ridiculed it), it smacks of Platonism, even though Popper clearly distinguished his own world 3 ideas from platonic forms. But Popper's world 3 notions are critical to his ideas about the pursuit of truth, criticism and trial and error as the method of science and problem-solving, the growth of knowledge, and evolutionary epistemology. Popper's world 3 is also critical to knowledge management, because without it we can't sensibly talk about managing the interaction between subjective mental knowledge (world 2) and objective linguistic knowledge (world 3), and, one can argue, it is managing this interaction to enhance the growth of relevant knowledge that is knowledge management's greatest challenge and major preoccupation.

Of all the commentary I have seen on world 3 Chapter 7 is the best at simply stating what Popper meant by it, why the notion is important to critical rationalism and the growth of knowledge, why people have denied its importance, why world 3 is consistent with a thoroughgoing fallibilism, why world 3 is a denial of empiricist epistemology, why the notion of world 3 is not invalidated by the greatly over-rated "Ockham's Razor," why world 3 doesn't violate the principle of causality, and finally why world 3 is important in spite of the view of the Wittgensteinians that solutions to philosophical problems which world 3 is an instance of, are meaningless because such problems are themselves meaningless. And in the process of doing this commentary, Notturno presents and analyzes for us a wonderful story of an encounter between Popper and Wittgenstein (mediated by Bertrand Russell) at Cambridge on October 26, 1946, which in microcosm, illustrates the conflict between reason and authority, and the open society and the closed society. It was an encounter in which the master of the cold stare, the mystique of genius, and the pithy aphorism, found himself so frustrated by the master of critque and dialogue that he left the field of open debate in anger and disgust.

There are many excellent critiques of contemporary discourse, but few disclose the problem in its broader range. Of those that do, fewer still identify principles by which we could extricate ourselves. Popper would seem an unlikely starting point. In the opinion of many, Popper had his day along with the authoritarianism he opposed. Indeed, the main impetus for revival of Popper's open society concept has been George Soros's effort to help polities in the former Soviet block rid themselves of the vestiges of communism. What worries Soros is that former Soviet citizens will retain a utopian thought structure and simply plug in different parts, notably markets and democracy. Visiting Americans don't always help. Russians who receive lectures from Americans complain of condescension, but it is often worse than that -- the lecturers don't understand the underpinnings of the institutions they recommend. The lecturer may assume that markets and democracy will, by themselves and of necessity, create a non-authoritarian social field. They don't. It is one of Notturno's aims to explain this disturbing possibility that many Western elites fail to grasp.

The author has applied remarkable energy to running open society seminars through the post-Soviet world. Some of the chapters of the book are based on these seminars, and the talks are honed through frequent delivery before groups that are receptive yet skeptical. It would be a terrible mistake to assume that the presence of this audience means that the book is not relevant to the American experience. Notturno understands that Popper's intention was to promote openness in all modern societies, not just Communist ones, and he has admirably brought Popper's program up to date. He efficiently critiques the primacy given to consensus in science. He also addresses dangers outside the scientific institution proper by taking on tolerance, relativism, therapy, and bureaucracy.

In several cases his starting point is biographical, and he offers some revealing letters and contemporary accounts that most of us will not be familiar with. These materials give his philosophical arguments freshness and motivation not often found in academic works. Wittgenstein, Carnap, Freud, Bohr, Kuhn, and several other heroes are indicted for various offenses against open science. Popper isn't spared either, though he certainly comes out ahead on crucial matters.

The best feature of the book is that the reader has a sense of where to begin and what to do. I found myself wanting to stand up, ask a question, and engage somebody in authentic discussion. You are propelled forward toward problems, in your own voice, not backward toward anything that Popper might have said. I can image that this would be a very useful book in almost any public affairs course that reflects on ground rules for debate and investigation. Better yet, the book can help adult learners free themselves from the stifling rhetoric of ideologists.

I was curious and asked Notturno where his program is headed. I was pleased to find that he has plans for workshops, international academic contacts, dissertation support, and other collaborations that offer practical results, or at least a fuller sense of what rational discussion entails. I recommend that you get in touch with him, especially if you have ideas on how to institutionalize these activities. ......................

Disputing disputation. I accept what Notturno extracts from Popper as good logic, but I wonder whether something more needs to be said about the social side of argument. Popper was relentless in finding the contradictions in others. Students who tried to fend him off using self-protective rhetoric often felt ridiculed when his persistent questions eventually forced them to admit their errors. But it is probably the case that students who adhered to good logic were also humiliated. The assumption behind such intellectual conflict is that contradictions are not voluntarily displayed. More generally, one defends tidy statements that brook no problem. Is that the kind of statement we must have at the ready before speaking to each other, and is that process ideal?

I wonder about such things, and suffer for it. Last week, I drafted a report and offered examples of how software could be used. I mentioned an operation that would be useful to execute in the software, but cautioned that the operation might be too difficult to implement. I figured that it would be useful to retain the idea as a possibility rather than to discard it. The project manager, adhering to conventional practice, did not want this or any problem mentioned in our report, and the idea was discarded. The motivation, I suppose, is to give the client nothing that can be questioned, nothing incomplete. Is that good?

The same sort of thing happens when writing definitions. The definition and examples stay well within what is safe to say, and no guidance is offered that would help decide hard cases, which is exactly when definitions are needed.

We challenge each other to find weaknesses that we are reluctant to disclose and may actually be hiding. It is a cat and mouse game, not a mutual exploration with a common object. To explore together would require a kind of trust between partners that doesn't often exist. One approach to building that trust is to create a space for imaginative thought in which a different set of rules is enforced.

DeBono has argued well for a separate imaginative effort prior the critical effort, symbolized as green hat versus black hat thinking. But consider how things actually play out in an organization that sequesters thinking in this way. 3M requires that people work on secret projects for a significant percentage of their time, and they are expected to bring a project forward when it is ready to be criticized. Whenever anything is brought before an "outsider", the presumption is that it is offered as something to be attacked. There is no possibility of wider collaboration beyond a secret cell of partners.

To put it bluntly, I'm wondering whether loose thinking should be an element of openness. The idea is not to avoid critical thinking, but to neither elevate nor extend it to the point that it suppresses options, rewards timidity, and encourages unproductive conflict. [1] In both science and business, new approaches that eventually prove to be better usually perform poorly at the beginning. An idea gains a following on an intuitive, theoretical, or emotional basis before it reaches final form. [2] Without these non-rational appeals, which are very similar to the "communal" appeals that Notturno counts as a danger, the innovation pipeline could dry up. [3] Notturno says that false theories are a dime a dozen, which is true, but new theories are in the same stack.

An open attitude, I feel, is something different from the critical attitude that is admittedly necessary to sustain both open science and an open society. An open attitude can tolerate indecision, incompleteness, and even contradiction. (Someone said that the test of a good mind is that it can hold contradictory thoughts simultaneously.) [4] The open attitude moves toward clarity, but not prematurely and not toward complete closure. That may be too much forbearance to ask for some, and offer too easy a ride for others. Yet, in our atmosphere of both heavy criticism and a communal science that avoids criticism, we tend to confine ourselves to safe science. Those who can't stand this situation may exile themselves, or claim outlandish revolutions, neither of which gains any traction. .................................

I'm not sure if this book is out of print -save for the hardcover - or just unavailable but it is well worth getting (even supposing you have to go elsewhere).

Why? First off, anyone who's read Karl Popper knows that he was a phenomenal writer who could pack much content into any one sentence. Mark Notturno is not only that good, dare I say it, he may be better at it than Popper?! Whereas Popper's terseness occasionally led him to vagueries, Notturno is always crisp.

Second, books on Popper tend to rehash his views (which the authors either understand or not - 50/50). Notturno extends Popper's thought. Never quite disagreeing with any of it, Notturno does find fault with a few of Poppers vagueries and corrects them. The essay herein - "induction and demarcation" is notable as it focuses on Poppers tendency to mislead on certain views he held. The distinction between falsification and falsifiability, the problem not being of induction altogether but the fact that bad inductive conclusions, unlike deduction, will not point to a false premise, and from it the fact that Popper did not quite believe all induction to be invalid.

Some other good essays to note (in addition to the ones listed two reviews below) are "education and the open society" which is a good essay on why current education methods might fail (his similarity to John Dewey in this, and other, regards always amazes me). Also 'inference and deference' is a great article exposing the failure of logic to justify, contra popular philosophic practice, deference to authority. Not barring it outright, Notturno highlights two errors of thought that lead us to defer abdicatingly to authority: defensive thinking and poitical thinking. If there was an essay focusing solely on these two concepts (this one only devotes a few paragraphs) then I would've had to give the book seven stars. Also worthy of mention is the afterword "what is to be done" about post-communism and how a proper trainsitiion to a truly open-society can take place. In short, very good book. If you are a Popper fan and are tired of reading secondary books that only rehash, never expand, this is the best book I can think of.

Wow! Easily one of the best reads I've had in years. Not only is it an insightful source of understanding for those interested in Karl Popper's philosophy, but Notturno, himself, emerges as a powerful player in the field of critical reasoning and the politics of knowledge. A devastatingly effective thinker and writer in his own right. It will change your view of the world and the role of reasoning and politics in the conduct of human affairs. Awesome!

For about thirty years I have been a fan of Karl Popper's writings. This recent book on Popper's philosophy (of science and of politics) is most excellent. It presents Popper's ideas more clearly than Popper himself, in my opinion. So readers can get a quick taste of this work I refer them to two pages: On p88 Notturno argues that "institutiomalism and inductivism are more closely related than one might think." Inductive conclusions do not follow from their premises. Group solidarity is used to close the gap. On p142 Notturno clarifies: Popper posited World 1 as the world of physical objects, World 2 as the world of thoughts (feelings and imagination), and World 3 as the world of imaginative artifacts (songs, theorems, laws, etc.). The creative act corresponds to taking an insight from World 2 into World 3, from where it can be shared (I have a theorem in mathematical physics named for me internationally so I know this process first hand.). IT'S A FINE READ!

I'm a fan of Turkle, so I just loved it. It's just one of the first deep books written about human-computer interaction.

A classic in the field of human/computer interaction, it suffers a bit from its age (although I was delighted to read about the way children interacted with Merlin and Simon, given that I was a child who had interacted with both of the above). Children are so much more saturated with computers and computer technology than when the book was written, that I wonder how the observations will have changed.

_The Second Self_ is divided into three parts:

Part I: Growing Up with Computers: The Animation of the Machine
Part II: The New Computer Cultures: The Mechanization of the Mind
Part III: Into a New Age

This is "the" book that described the true origin of "hacking" as in "pushing the edge of the envelope" by writing a complex program in six lines of code instead of ten. This is a really superior piece of work about computer cultures and the people that belong to them. It is a wonderfully readable book with magnificent insights into the psychology of the young people at the bleeding edge of the computer frontier.

Update of 31 May 08 to add links:
THE HACKER CRACKDOWN: LAW AND DISORDER ON THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
Information Payoff: The Transformation of Work in the Electronic Age
Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace (Helix Books)
The Unfinished Revolution: Human-Centered Computers and What They Can Do For Us
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

Has it already been twenty years since the first edition of this book came out?! When it did so, it was soon regarded as a classic. The intervening years have done nothing to diminish that assessment. Turkle has updated it to form this second edition.

By and large, her analysis in 1984 proved on the mark. As computers have improved in power, and become smaller and more portable, their users tend to identify with them. And here it should be said that the cellphones of today are considered, and are indeed, computers in the context of this text. Certainly, a typical cellphone has a raw computational capacity exceeding the personal computers of 1984.

To some readers, the most puzzling thing may be why some users so identify with their computers, or half-jokingly, attribute personalities to them. There seems to be some innate urge in many people for this.

Needless to say, suppose we project out another 20 years. The trend is for more such behaviour. The sophistication and personalisation possible in those future mobile machines makes this inevitable. And this is even NOT assuming any breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, which might endow the devices with true personalities.

Turkle's seminal text examines the social implications of our increasingly computer-suffused lives. With a strong emphasis on individual interactions with computers, this ethnography describes an emerging post-modern computer culture, and goes on to interpret it in philosophical terms. A bit utopian, very smart, acts as a bit of a pre-quel to her recent work, Life on the Screen

What a Book!!! This unusual book is sometimes enduring to read, but all the profound contents are unexpected and bewildering! I was completely amazed at all the secret revelations and what goes on underground without detection by humanity at large. The author expose also gives you a new age consciousness, direction into evolution and the horrors of the malicious dark entities who have infiltrated in religion, and government. In contrast, every chapter consumes you with different revelations and exclusive teachings of secret societies. I really liked it and would love to meet the author

I got this fantastic book after reading the Da Vinchi Code and The Secret .There is no doubt that Secret Societies Exposed deals with accurate esoteric information compared to other fictional story tellers. The Author, contrary to other writers was actually initiated in these amazing Secret Societies. I cant understand why Hollywood hasn't made a movie out of this extraordinary book!! I highly recommended to all.

As the title says.."exposed"; shocking revelations, very well described. No wonder this book had to be edited outside the US.

The book not only covers the historical perspective for many secret "but well known" societies, but how they still exist in our modern society, and what goes on behind their closed doors. Highly recommended, not only for those interested in the esoteric, but conspiracy theorists as well. There's something here for everyone.

This book is "awesome" reveals all the true secrets that the Davinchi Code lacks! It's non-fictional and full of extraordinary revelations. Some minor errors in the editing, yet the Author conveys the secrets of Freemasonry, Rosicrucians, Knight Templars and many hidden Secret Societies. Highly recommended!!

Unique methodological approach that brings out the key technological issues, analytical tools, and technical and policy options. Thoughtful. Insightful. Innovative.

Excellent analysis of seismic risk for a given water system with important applications to other sites. The writing style will appeal to a broad range of audiences.

Well written, well researched book that is a must-read for practitioners and policy-makers. Useful not only for Seattle, but findings are applicable to other water systems.

Although the technical matter may seem dry, the writing style is extremely nuanced making this a fascinating and useful book. The author advocates a dynamic analysis of lifeline systems using leading edge mathematical models and seismic risk methods.

This book makes use of case studies to understand lessons learned in seismic risk mitigation. The author is first-rate and brilliant in the analysis and extrapolation of results. Finally a focus on success stories rather than on analyzing failures.

Life goes on for the emigrants turned immigrants turned settlers. Midway through the third book, we find out about Robert and Arvid. They never reached California. Arvid died from drinking poisoned water after getting lost on the trail. Robert ended up in Nebraska with another Swede who came over on The Charlotta.

After four years, Robert returns to Karl Oskar's and Kristina's farm. He has Arvid's watch and a large sum of money which he gives to his brother. Karl Oskar is suspicious. Did he find gold? Where is Arvid? Robert has changed. His health is gone, and he is disillusioned. He sees the folly of gold fever.

As it happened, Robert was swindled. The Swede from the ship traded him wildcat money for gold given to him by a dying Mexican. When Karl Oskar finds the bills are worthless, he hits his brother in the face. Broken, Robert wanders into the forest and dies, free at last. The pessimism of this episode is disturbing. We feel the tenuous nature of life and the ease with which men can be led astray.

The Settlers goes through 1860. Minnesota attains statehood. The book ends with Kristina resigning herself to life in America, just as her brother-in-law yielded to his inescapable fate.

Whether one is of Swedish extraction or not, if your ancestors came to America during the period of great migration from Europe, Moberg presents a wonderful picture of what it must have been like in "the old country" and the decision to start a new life in a new land. This is the third part of a four-part series. One would not get the full flavor of the book without reading the others in the series, but having the whole collection is a good plan, since it is a tale worth reading over and again.

This is an epic work by its Swedish author, who is considered to be one of Sweden's greatest writers. Translated from Swedish into English, this beautifully written book of historical fiction was first published in 1956. It is the third part of a four part opus, the first two of which are "The Emigrants" and "Unto a Good Land". The last book is aptly titled "Last Letter Home".

In the first volume, "The Emigrants", the author detailed the emigration of a Swedish family to the New World, grounding it in the reasons for the exodus of so many Swedes from their mother country in the middle of the 19th century. The focus of the first book in this four part opus is on the family, relatives, and friends of Karl Oscar Nilsson, a peasant farmer who unceasingly worked his farm, only to find that, no matter what he did, he could not progress and would continue to live on the cusp of total poverty. The focus of the first book is on their life in Sweden. Gathering up family and friends of the family, the Nilssons decide to take the monumental step of making a fresh start by emigrating to the new world, specifically the United States of America.

The second volume, "Unto a Good Land", focuses on the arrival of the Nilsson family and friends in the United States of America. It details their journey from New York, a journey that was to take them across the Midwest by rail, steamer, and foot, to arrive in the wilds of what would one day be the State of Minnesota. It is in this wilderness that the Nilsson family and friends would homestead and struggle to make a new home. The author regales the reader with the travails this hardy group of settlers would encounter in their efforts to create by the sweat of their brow a new home in the wilderness. The early struggles of the Nilsson family to succeed in what was an unknown frontier is engagingly chronicled.

In "The Settlers", the author continues the story of the Nilsson family and friends. It is the story of a family who struggled to prevail in Minnesota, an alien land of harsh, inhospitable winters and scorching summers. The book continues to chronicle their lives and their adaptation to the adopted country that they would forever call home. It tells the story of the divided Nilsson brothers, each of whom would forge a path alien to the other. The author hones in on the fact that the early settlers were subject to being taken advantage of by the unscrupulous. He highlights the mass migration of disaffected Swedes to Minnesota and details their contribution to the prosperity of that part of the country. The author shows how these early Swedish settlers consolidated themselves into a thriving, bustling community, despite the obstacles and hardships that were to be their lot in the early years of their struggle to make the new land yield to their will.

I have enjoyed the first, second, and third volumes so much that I look forward to continuing this journey with the Nilssons by reading the last remaining volume. Well-written and vibrant with period detail, this is a book that those who enjoy historical fiction will appreciate.

This is the third book in a series by the talented author, Vilhelm Moberg. It follows the story of the struggling Swedish family of Kristina and Karl Oskar, who are trying to survive and make a better life for themselves and their children in America. I would reccommend reading the first two books in the exciting saga before reading The Settlers, so you'll know how and why Karl Oskar and his wife came to America in the first place. I really enjoyed reading all three of these books, but I especially liked this one because of the vivid descriptions and the overall story of their hardships and how they overcome them. I would definitely suggest that you get your hands on a copy of The Settlers as soon as possible! This is absolutely a two thumbs up read!

The Settlers follows the experiences of Karl Oskar Nilsson, and his wife Kristina, from 1853 to 1860. In 1853 Karl Oskar is surprised to find something new in the woods around his homestead - a neighbor. The mass migration of Swedes has begun, and soon there is a community, with a schoolhouse and a church. Karl Oskar's younger brother Robert returns from the California gold rush, seemingly broken in health and spirit, and reluctant to say what happened to him. It is a bittersweet time of change, a time of gaining and a time of losing.

This book is the third in the Emigrants quadrilogy, and continues to demonstrate the same excellence shown by the others. Vilhelm Moberg was a great writer, and these books are amongst the best that I have ever read. The characters are powerfully written, seeming quite real; this was one of the authors many strengths. This is a wonderful introduction to the settler experience, and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

[For those of you with young children, I would like to recommend the Kirsten books in the American Girls series. Written for young readers (primarily girls), it tells the story of a Swedish family that immigrates to Minnesota in 1854.]

Let's face it -- folks are having sex, but we rarely talk about it in the church. If we really want to help people, we need to start to talk about what is ailing us. This book is a great tool to open people's minds to what is really going on and how people are really living. I highly suggest it to anyone involved in young adult ministry.

Kelly Brown Douglas has opend a work that will be reqired reading in most schools of divinity. The conroling thesis of her work is the establishment of a sexual Discourse of Resistance as a counterforce to white racist culture that has exploited and damaged African American sexuality.Douglas contends that the damage is so deep that blacks have a difficulty speaking openly regarding issues of sexuality. She has masterfully made the interconnections between sexuality, racism, sexism and homophoia. She challenges the black church to employ her sexual discourse of resistance but does not clearly explain what contstitutes the black church. What about Black Catholics, Black Episcopalions, et.al. Her work underscores the sadness that some theologians (namely, Black Roman Catholics) could never author such a text because much of Douglas's volume counterveins Roman Catholic dogmatic formulations and a Catholic theologian would have to answer to Rome for such a work. Thank God for African American Episcopalions like Douglas.

I think I've recommended this great work to everyone I know.

This book should be a must read for all African American church members. It is challenging, provocative, and engaging. A work like this is the only way to begin the dialogue necessary to resurrect the dying Black Church.

Douglas tells the truth about American history when she reveals how black people were mistreated during slavery. This book shows that sexuality was used to oppress black people, the white culture exists only as the non-white culture is oppressed, day to day social struggles are a microcosm of the macrocosm (for example, "gangsta" rap is a response/result of dehumanizing social influences such as institutions and systems). But the book gets off track when Douglas condones homosexuality and mixes principles of Christianity with principles of secular humanism.

Kelly Brown Douglass has written an excellent first chapter for her book Sexuality and th Black Church. What she has done here is to explain the relevance of using Michel Foucault as a tool to look at the history of black sexuality in the United States. Her basic argument is that black sexuality as we know it today is a fiction, a number of fictions (made of up numerous stereotypes), more or less derived, from what she calls White Culture. That Black sexuality has been a means to discipline and control black bodies. This book is commendable in that it dares to use Foucault and that it touches upon the personal in such aa way as to make all a bit uneasy --- black, white, male, female, heterosexual and homosexual. We all have a lot to learn from her analysis.

This is a simply fascinating work that weaves business history, marketing theory and techniques, economic differentiation, and overt and unconscious racism. The most interesting dimensions (for this unapologetic Son of the South) is the isolation of the feelings and thoughts of nostalgia that the Quaker Oats image of Aunt Jemima invoked and Manring examines in detail. He follows the work of James Young and illustrator N.C. Wyeth's creation and adaptations of the image from conception to modern politically correct adaptation.

I'm not sure I completely buy into Manrings total thesis, since as a child I always just thought of Aunt Jemima's big old smile as normal, and after all, who doesn't like pancakes? Her image to me meant "proud," "good cooking," and "skilled" not contented servitude as Manring proposes.

Still, this is a fascinating and challenging read.

Prof. Manring has accomplished something rare: an academic book free of jargon, a cultural history free of polemic, and a thorough analysis that never drags. She writes clear, lively prose -- this is a book for the general reader as well as the student of American history. Brava!

This book and its contextualization of Aunt Jemima or the mammy stereotype, as I refer to it, is well-written and thought-provoking. The material has been very helpful to me in exploring how this particular stereotype of black women functions in American culture and I will be using it as a key reference in my dissertation. Thanks.

Slave in a Box is a great study of the racism and sexism embodied in the birth of advertising. It is not only provocative but also chock full of great facts about the era--from the importance of paper bags in marketing to the story of an African American who actually wrote for minstrel shows. I am writing because I am a historian and used the book in my Industrialization of America class. The class generally hated it, because it is so detailed, but despite their response I recommend using it in a course. Our discussion was painful--black students said the book was "depressing" and white students denied that race had anything to do with the power of this trade name (they harped on the convenience, as if the stereotype was irrelevant!). I learned so much about them and so much about what we all need to do as teachers that I think it was a very valuable experience.

Very often, histories/studies of Aunt Jemima and the mammy stereotype are simply descriptive; this book does a great job of showing how Aunt Jemima's image and products were designed to complement/support ideal white femininity. My only criticism is that Aunt Jemima's presence on television and radio wasn't discussed enough. A great read for anyone interested in issues of race, gender and domesticity. I have recommended this book to many people, and continue to do so.