Campbell Books

What made OTSA relevant in the months after 9/11 continues to make the anthology significant today. Polls estimated that over forty percent of Americans attended religious services in the days following 9/11. Many Americans were disoriented and confused in the days following the attacks, and putting their confidence in the hands of a higher power, many found it easer to cope with the horrifying realities facing the nation. OTSA instructs readers on surviving when faced with adversity. It is especially relevant to the victims and families affected by 9/11, but its words can inspire the suffering during any tragedy.

What made On The Sabbath After (OTSA) relevant in the months after 9/11 continues to make the anthology significant today. Polls estimated that over forty percent of Americans attended religious services in the days following 9/11. Many Americans were disoriented and confused in the days following the attacks, and putting their confidence in the hands of a higher power, many found it easer to cope with the horrifying realities facing the nation. OTSA instructs readers on surviving when faced with adversity. It is especially relevant to the victims and families affected by 9/11, but its words can inspire the suffering during any tragedy.

Joanna Campbell Slan continues to publish books of real substance for scrapbookers. In ONE MINUTE JOURNALING she packs each page with colorful examples and explains how the page was made (with list of supplies!). Her journaling ideas are both practical and useful. I particularly loved the page she did for her friend who had lost the cat she loved. She created a wonderful effect with rubber stamps, punches, and vellum to make a window scene with a shadowy cat; I would never have thought of crimping vellum to create a window blind! I know I will use this book a lot.

This is a WONDERFUL book! It's just beautiful and a real pleasure to look through. I'm a beginning scrapbooker and I must admit that I'm more into journaling than scrapbooking (I'm not very artistic or creative and I'm better with words than with cutting and pasting!).

You really get to know the author through this book. This is not just a book of ideas for scrapbooking - it's really about the philosophy behind scrapbooking, and the reason for it. The ideas are really good, and I learned a tremendous amount from this book. But I think even more than that, I was inspired to venture out in my own writing on my scrapbook pages!

Michael Toms in his introduction to this book states that Campbell "possessed the rare gift of distilling wisdom from a bottomless well of information and knowledge". I would agree and add further that it was also Michael Tom's own high level of knowledge and (more importantly) his warm and genial personality that make this series of interviews more like a fireside dialogue.

Campbell was (and still is) considered one of the greatest scholars of mythology possessing a blazing and intuitive mind. That he was able to communicate his specialist knowledge with an attitude of joy and fun is remarkable. These conversations are also available via audio file, where Campbell's Homeric laugh is a tonic, and Tom's gentle tones are a pleasure. Making fertile work of such topics as literature, philosophy, politics, religion, love, and the great angst of humanity - the meaning of life - this book never preaches, is devoid of dogma and is a pure joy to read.

I recommend it to anyone.

I love to listen to Joseph Campbell, and this book is the next best thing to that. The questions are insighful, and of course Joseph is as relevant today as when he was interviewed. This book includes conversations over many sittings and a great many interesting topics.

A wonderful reading for a plant lover. Provides a nice glimps into British history as well. A fortunate combination of Natural and Social history in one book.

This is an extensively researched and well-written book that investigates how garden plants arrived in England. The writer, a respected garden historian and fellow of the Linnean Society, has chosen to divide her material into centuries. She sets the scene with a look at Roman and Anglo-Saxon approaches to gardening and plants, then gets into more detail about plant immigrants, starting with the first century of the second millennium.

To put the reader more clearly in the picture the writer starts each chapter (century) with a list of significant dates so we can see how historical events influenced the arrival of plants. In the twelfth century, for example, plant introductions were influenced by the Crusades as plants were brought to Britain from the eastern Mediterranean region.

But this is not just a book about plants; it's also about the people associated with them. Sir Thomas More, for example, who in his book Utopia envisaged a town where everyone had a garden around their home.

New plants are still arriving in England from around the world. A "living fossil" tree was discovered in Australia in 1994. Its Latin name is Wollemia nobilis (it was found by David Noble) and it is known as the Dinosaur pine. Plants have been arriving from every continent for centuries and shared back and forth especially to Europe and the US. Just as many new plants went from the New World to brighten English gardens, so seeds and plants were taken to North America by English settlers to create gardens in their new homeland.

If you enjoy reading about the background and history of plants, who found them and how they came to us, you will enjoy this book. It has a very decent bibliography and deserves a place in every plantsman's (and woman's) library.

Out Of The West: The Gund Collection Of Western Art by Suzan Campbell (Gund Curator of Western Art, History, and Culture for the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art) is an extensive and informative western American art history showcasing works from the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art. Deftly compiled, organized and with expert commentary, Out Of The West offers readers a complete reference guide that includes the artists, their subjects, timely and timeless ideals represented in various works, modern collections of western art, as well as anecdotal stories and background portraits with each featured piece, painting, drawing, sculpture, and more. An important, core addition to professional, academic, and community library "History of American Art" collections, Out Of The West is very highly recommended for art students and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the history, enduring popularity, creative passion, and culturally iconic power of American western art.

The Gund Collection of Western Art's holdings serve as the foundation for a powerful gathering of paintings, drawings and photos in nearly 60 full-page reproductions in color in OUT OF THE WEST: THE GUND COLLECTION OF WESTERN ART. Accompanying these gorgeous reproductions are sidebars of historic reference which discusses painter influences, subject, and background history: enough to lend further appreciation, especially for those less familiar with Western art and artists. Gund was a fine storyteller and collected art as part of his fascination for Western culture and themes: OUT OF THE WEST is a fine and fitting tribute to his perspective, sharing his collection with the world.

This is one of Campbell's great early novels - and a particularly bloodcurdling one, at that. At his best Campbell can make the flesh of even the most jaded reader crawl. Find it!

The good news is that I got a decent used copy here at a VERY reasonable price. I also recommend "Incarnate" and, for the adventurous only, "The Face That Must Die."

This is my favourite Campbell novel without a doubt. The story revolves around Rose who begins to have weird out of body experiences years after using a oujiboard. This book like all Campbells work is unsettling, well written and has great characterisation with well drawn, realistic relationships between characters in contrast to Koontz et al cardboard cut out stereotypes. More than any of his other novels this has some deeply scary and memorable scenes that will stick in your memory for a long time.

Hands down our twins' favorite book. "Who's behind my big blue car?" - the opening line - has them smiling and looking for it. A simple board book, they love to point at the 5 peepo characters peeking out from around our through the half flaps between pages. We're buying two more to put back for their children someday.

We recieved this book as a gift for Christmas for my then 6 month old son. It is one of his favorite books now. He loves turning the flaps to see "who" is hiding. He just sits and turns the same flap over and over again, while I go "Peepo Baby!" I highly recommend it as a first book for you infant. Even as he is getting older, he enjoys seeing the teddys and ducks because he has some of them too.

This is not just another lighthouse story. Campbell's inspiration and primary source for the main character, Annie, (and her experiences) was a real person. Reading the book, you get a sense of both the beauty and the harshness of life on tiny Passage Island. Annie's deep love for the island resounds throughout. "Pocketful of Passage" is a book that everyone in the family can enjoy.

This story has all the heart of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Series, the thrills of Nancy Drew, and the added benefit of focusing on Michigan's history and lighthouses! Boys and Girls will both love this book!

I am jewish and I found this book very informative. Sometimes these kinds of books sugarcoat what happened in Europe during WWII or they are at the other end of the spectrum and reveal the truths in such a way to shock readers. This book, however, follows a group of men involved in WWII and discusses what happened to them very matter of factly. In doing so Mr. Campbell has taken the middle ground and put the information in easy to read chapters so you can flip through and go directly to a part of the war and only read about that or you can read through the entire book. He tells of what happened- the carelessness for life- and goes into detail of how this happened- the reasoning behind the assaination of so many people. In school I learned only the after math of the war and about all the distruction and tragedy. In this book I've learned some of the solider's side and part of their thinking. I would recommend to anyone who wants a fair perspective of the war to buy this book.

Thus far the only book I've read on Police Battalions has been that of Browning's "Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution." This is an organization that not much has been written about when compared to the Army, SS, SD, and probably a wide variety of other organizations within Nazi Germany. Yet these were the troops that were involved in some of the more horrific crimes that took place on the Eastern Front. For this the author deserves praise, he's taken a topic that few know much about and given those, like myself, a solid base from where to start further research if at some point it comes to that. There are quite a few pictures throughout the book and many times it will become apparent that when one is viewing pictures from the Holocaust these men, more than occasionally, were most likely amongst those in the pictures. Their uniforms resembled the army's except they were green instead of gray, not something easy to spot in black and white photos.

The first chapter explains the organization of Police Units, who they answered to, what they were equipped with, how they were numbered, and what their responsibilities were.

The second chapters deals with the German invasion of Poland. With the estimated 1.8 million German troops that crossed the border came 21 police battalions. With the invasion the Nazis also began their Operation Tannenburg which was to target a variety of members of the Polish population with the intent of erasing the memory of Poland as a state for good. The Einsatzgruppen were created for the job, of the 4,250 personnel assigned to the Einsatzgruppen 2,250 were men from police battalions. The army was told that these men were there to ensure rear area security, a viable excuse and one used to gain 'freedom of action' for Himmler and Heydrich. According to the author this invasion was the first time that buildings were burned with human beings inside of them. While Germans were more or less 'experts' at burning down Synagogues by this time it had never been done with Jews inside. Einsatzgruppen actions in Poland would change that, although their activities were day and night compared to what they would reap when the Soviet Union would be invaded. The discipline of the Einsatzgruppen at times outraged the army officers. The commander of the Special Operations Group of the Einsatzgruppen was even asked by the Army to be put in front of a court martial. Keeping in mind that this was not in regards to the activities he and his men were performing but rather the way in which they were going about performing them (which included looting, raping, and the burning down of synagogues). Himmler made the commander in question a "special commander of the Police" in response. Within a span of some three weeks the Einsatzgruppen were able to burn 500 towns and villages and 16,376 people were executed. Police battalions were then sent to a variety of villages and towns with Jewish populations of under 500 to transfer them to urban ghettos. At times it would be decided that it was easier to march Jews off to a hastily dug ditch outside of town than proceed with their resettlement in a ghetto. At the end of the chapter the author gives a list of the Polish Battalions and their 'group compositions' which participated in Poland, quite useful and interesting! Many would later go on to participate in the war against the Soviet Union.

Third chapter deals with the invasion of the Soviet Union where the 'total war' based on Hitler's genocidal ideas and intrigues finally came to fruition. The Einsatzgruppen here consisted of 3,000 men of whom 500 belonged to the police. Yet, throughout the entire campaign, if one takes into account rotations and transfers at least 10,000 German police served in one capacity or another with the Einsatzgruppen. Thus far one mistake on the author's part is to state that when the German army entered Soviet regions which encompassed Ukraine and the Baltics they were greeted as "friends and liberators" while many in the Baltics and Ukraine did greet the Wehrmacht MANY more did not and would fight against them as Partisans and with the Red Army. For Ukraine specifically this welcoming would be most present in the Western regions which were only incorporated in 1939 when Poland was divided between the Soviets and the Germans. Throughout the first year of occupational duties police battalions would perform 'special tasks' this would mainly include rounding up and shooting Jews, Communists, etc. When the Moscow Counter-Offensive started many of these battalions would be used in the front lines to shore up collapsing lines, especially in Army Group North. After they were released from front line duties and participated in the final year, 1942, of large-scale executions by squads with rifles and/or machine guns. This period also saw the rise of indigenous police units which began to carry out the job of mass murder under German supervision. Throughout the rest of the war police battalions would participate in anti-Partisan sweeps and operations and in the last year of the war help make up Kampfgruppen which were desperately trying to stop the Soviet advance on Germany. Luckily for those police battalion members who were able to survive is the fact that the Nuremberg "trials did not consider the police a criminal organization."

The fourth chapter recounts the partisans and their activities as well as how the Germans tried to stop/annihilate them. Security divisions were responsible for the rear areas but with the Soviet Union being so large and there only being 9 security divisions for all three army group's rear areas, it was not a small task to silence all the opposition in the rear. Police battalions which entered the Soviet Union were assigned to security divisions; for example, Army Group North in 1941 and for the beginning of 1942 had three police battalions each assigned to one of three security divisions. The same could be seen for Army Groups South and Center, three battalions for three divisions. As the war progressed the policing was carried out more by indigenous units which were easily recruited during the beginning period of the war. The three operations usually undertaken by the police battalions was the patrolling of areas, "search and destroy missions", and real military operations which usually took place against armed partisans.

The fifth chapter quickly tackles the issue of auxiliaries. Their creation in the beginning of the war had as much to do with the fact that they could point out who the Jews were and other "undesirables" and were willing to assist in murdering their former neighbors for a price. As early as late July in 1941 indigenous units were being created to help in the mass murdering process throughout the rear areas of the Soviet Union. The Polish population offered 15,000 in terms of auxiliaries while in Ukraine in 1941 eighteen battalions at around 500 each (this of course excludes the men who would later join the SS Galicia division), Estonia produced twelve battalions, etc.

The last chapter, six, is on the Holocaust. The author asks the usual question of how could it be that such an event could occur and how is it that the Jewish people could stand by and do nothing, reacting via the partisan movement or in other ways much later on in the war. A fictional account is given of a city in Ukraine and the way that a usual German aktion would take place against its Jewish population. It will easily ring true to all those who are familiar with the Holocaust and German actions in the east, it is a quick recounting with an inevitable conclusion and one that occurred hundreds if not thousands of times throughout the former Soviet Union.

This marks the beginning of the appendices. The six chapters listed above take up some 40 pages, with many pictures intermixed with text. It is a good background to the actions of these men and the rest of the book goes into specific police battalions and what they were responsible for, where they were raised, stationed, participated, etc. A treasure trove for those who want specifics in regards to various actions on the Eastern Front. A few examples include Police Battalion 3 (Reserve) whose 1st company "was responsible for the death of 48,000 people" while working with Einsatzgruppe B and Einsatzkommando 8. For those interested in the Holocaust this book is a must read, highly recommended. This is an organization that few paid attention to while the limelight was on the SS, yet these men were just as responsible for the genocides going on in the East.

This book is a genuine classic by the greatest American historian of the twentieth century. It really encompasses three separate but related dimensions. First, Beard sets out to discuss the gap between "appearances and realities" in American foreign policy in 1941, leading up to the entry of the United States into the Second World War by way of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Secondly, he is concerned with the role of the "open door" world view in American thought which he believes set the stage for the Pacific conflict. And, thirdly, Beard raises questions concerning the conduct of American foreign policy relating to Presidential concealment and duplicity, the relation of means to ends in foreign policy, and the roles of the legislative branch and the electorate in the democratic control of foreign policy.

All of these themes are highly relevant to the post-World War II Vietnam debacle and more current American interventionism. Written shortly after World War II, and making use of the Joint Congressional Inquiry on the Pearl Harbor Attack, Charles A. Beard's last major book does not contain all the answers, but it raises the important questions.

This is a great and important book. It was not Beard's last book, but one that subjected him to a veritable witch hunt and his removal from his position in historical societies and organization. A progressive of the old LaFollette type, Beard simply sought to tell the truth about how Roosevelt plunged the USA into World War II before any declaration of war or attacks on the USA by Germany, Italy, or Japan.

Most of the material here comes from hearings in the US congress, some during World War II, and other shortly afterward.
It is unfortunate that Beard did not have access to the materials that have been available in the last 10 or 20 years as war time records has become declassified. His concentration is on Pearl Harbor and the naval war against Italy and Germany (most who write about submarine warfare in the Atlantic neglect the fact that there was a substantial force of Italian submarines as well as German submrines), that Roosevelt launched in 1940. Yet, this is but the tip of the iceberg in Roosevelt's illegal war against Germany and Italy and Japan in 1940 and in 1941.

Roosevelt ran the 1940 election under the slogan "I hate war" and on his many pledges not to send Americans to fight in the Second World War. As soon as Roosevelt won the 1940 election he secretly began to send American sailors, marines, and soldiers into the war.

In November 1940, Roosevelt sent the US navy into the Atlantic to attack and sink German and Italian submarines in complete cooperation with the British. This was despite the fact that the German and Italian submariners were ordered to stay out of the Western Atalantic and to avoid American ports and ships so they would not provoke US public opinion. What the Axis submariners could have done if they targeted American shipping was shown in 1941 and 1942 after Pearl Harbor. Hundreds of ships were sunk within sight of the East Coast. Britain was seriously threatened with strangulation.

The evidence that Beard prints in this book chiefly from Congressional hearings explains major incidents like the sinking of the Reuben James and the Kearny that were used to claim Germany was sinking American ships without provocation. Congressional hearings reported on in this book show both incidents were provoked by aggressive US Navy attacks on German submarines either separate from or in direct cooperation with the British and Canadian navies.

Roosevelt had the US in a world-wide naval war with Germany and Italy by 1941. American Navy pilots worked directly with the British. In fact it was an US Navy pilot, not a British pilot who flew the plane that torpedoed the Bismark and left it unable to steer. The destroyer for bases deal not only supplied the British with destroyers, but sent US troops to the bases that protected British colonies in the Americas and Africa so British troops there could be sent to the war in the Arab East.

The US Navy began to build a major base in Northern Ireland. By 1941 US Navy ships would attack, sink, or seize any German vessel they encountered on the high seas, not just in the Atlantic, but in the Pacific and Indian Ocean as well. The US fleet and "neutral" American shipping were used to convoy Australian, New Zealand, and British colonial troops from the Pacific to the US and Canada to be shipped to the British war in North Africa.

American Marines relieved the British troops who had essentially invaded and occupied Iceland, an action not really favored by the Icelandic government which had tried to stay neutral. Those same Marines were originally to have invaded Vichy-controlled Martinique and Guadeloupe, but the Vichy governor of the islands agreed to allow US Navy officers to control passage of naval vessels to those islands, keeping French warships in port on these islands until the end of the War.

In Asia, Roosevelt launched the Flying Tigers. Rather than being a mercenary program paid for by the Chaing Kai Shek government as the public was told until the relevant documents were released in the 1980s, the Flying Tigers were totally financed by the United States Army Air Force. All of the Tigers were serving Navy or Army pilots who were ordered to leave the Navy and the Army to accept positions with the Tigers. Generally, Army and Navy officers are not usually allowed to simply quit and take other positions before the end of their service, let alone in a period of coming war. Plans for the Tigers included building a huge American-staffed and paid for air force that would possess long range bombers to attack Japan. They barely had begun functioning in China before WWII began.

In late 1940 joint commissions of the US military and naval general staffs and their British counterparts were set up in both Washington and London to plan a US-British war against both Germany and Japan. Similar arrangements were worked out with Britain, Canada, and the Dutch colonial government of whatr is now knows as Indonesia for naval and military action against Japan.

Those who do not know the information Beard provides and the rest that has come out since his times, wonder why Germany declared war on the USA. They picture the German declaration of war as an erroneous and gratuitous act of solidarity with Japan. They miss the real question. The real question is why did Germany wait so long to declare war on the USA when the USA had been carrying on what American and international law clearly defined as illegal warfare against Germany since the fall of 1940.

Beard's courage on this issue was symptomatic of his rigor and independence, his relentless desire to find the truth. Just as we are ignorant of the real origins of US involvement in WWII without this pioneering work, we are ignorant of who the founders of the US government were, and what they were afraid of unless we read his Economic Interpretation of the Constitution. Beard was not just a learned man, a dilegent scholar, and pretty good writer, he was a brave man who demanded to tell the truth no matter how unpopular it was. We should all be more like Beard!