Minnesota Books

"A Plain Pine Box" tells the story of how the Adath Jeshurun Synagogue (Conservative) in Minneapolis, alarmed at the rising costs of funerals (not to mention departures from tradition), decided to reclaim the right to care for its own dead. After studying the Jewish laws of burial and the role of the Chevra Kadisha (burial society), they formed their own Chevra and began to offer thier members the option of a plain pine box, to be provided for free by the congregation.

This is a reprint of a book that first came out in 1981. At that time, I was living in Minneapolis, where these events took place, so many of the people involved are personally familiar to me. Rabbi Arnold Goodman, the author, was the pulpit rabbi at the synagogue. The story was also featured as a TV documentary, which received wide acclaim at the time.

The many challenges that the congregation faced -- ranging from paranoia by the funeral industry to concerns about government burial ordinances to opposition within their own membership -- are all covered here in detail. In addition, Rabbi Goodman discusses many important issues surrounding Jewish funerals. I highly recommend this book as a primer to any congregation -- Jewish or not -- that is considering a return to simple funerals.

great book that explains what the north country went through.

I may be bias since I contributed an appendix to volume 2, but I was eager to do so because of how impressed I was with volume one. This book fills a needed niche.

While I've met university professors disappointed that not all implied data is tightly referenced to peer reviewed journals, or available from the source for their review, this book provides a very practical & accessible plant selection tool for rain gardens and vegetated drainage systems in Minnesota.

The pdf version is available free from the Minnesota PCA, but any remaining new physical copies are only available through some University of Minnesota Extension office.

The waterproof pages of this guide make it ideal for professionals in the field who are unlikely to part with it soon, but resulted in a price that inhibited sales. Volume 2 of this series is available through a non-profit organization called Great River Greening, but is not waterproof and is mostly a shorter extension upon the first volume.

I feel this book was slightly ahead of its time, and suffered the tragedy of the commons. That is, people don't pay for what they can get free, neither publishers nor stores carry it without a healthy profit margin, and organizing so much original information on so many plants in one place takes substantial dedication.

I hope this book inspires future guides to build upon and further develop this concept into a more broadly successful consumer product. Interest in native plant traits vital for their function in stormwater management systems will continue to grow for years to come. In a sense this is a proof of concept, or prototype, for the kind of ambitious product that results from a lifetime of collaborative research. Aspects of this book deserve imitation.

In The Poetics of DNA, literary scholar Judith Roof questions both why and how DNA has come to symbolize "a cosmic truth, representative of all life, residence of all answers, potential for all cures, [and] repository for all identity." DNA has been regarded as an unquestionable truth, but, as Roof rightly observes, this particular discourse about the infallibility DNA is far from objective. Like all discourse, the linguistic representation of DNA is equally dependent upon and limited by language, which is, in turn, structured by the various cultures and ideologies that use it.

This book is a study not only of the poetics of DNA, but of the implications of its poetics -- its linguistic representations -- and of its appropriations. Cultural and ideological appropriations of DNA occur linguistically through the use of tropes such as metaphor, metonymy, and analogy. Roof analyzes these misappropriations in her chapter "The Homunculus and Saturating Tales." She convincingly argues that conservative ideologies concerning gender, sexuality and race have preserved themselves by utilizing current scientific research on DNA and the gene in particular. Roof describes how the harnessing of this "scientific evidence" effectively reinforces cultural stereotypes.

On gender, for instance, Roof states that "What the scientists observe may well be true, but the ways it is characterized are all about ideology -- an ideology seemingly naturalized by science -- but which deploys gender stereotypes as a starting point. These stereotypes, however, are also comforting, since they provide a familiar cultural logic for the "behaviors" of genes, which reinforces older notions of gender that have recently come into question. If we are worried that women are too much like men as a result of successful feminist movements and the reform of laws, then what better way to reassert a more conservative, patriarchal notion of the "proper woman's place" than to claim that male and female genes behave according to older patterns?"

Roof's juxtaposes this discussion about gender to ones about sexuality and race. Her section on the controversy surrounding the possible existence of a "gay gene," while quite brief, is smart and provocative. Throughout her study she tirelessly demonstrates the problematic logic that undergirds today's assumptions about DNA and the power afforded to the sciences as a result. The Poetics of DNA is a testament of the value of the humanities in today's science - and technology-driven world. While the humanities are overlooked -- and underfunded -- in favor of the sciences, Roof reminds us of their worth.

Read it within a few hours, and is full of glorious details and interesting facts. A well structured arugement over all, and very interesting. However glad I am to have the book in my hands, I was disappointed to see it on google books. ... money is as money does?

This is a must read for everyone interested in how environmental policy gets made. In this highly readable text, the editors have gathered a range of authors that approach environmental politics from several interesting directions. Some of the chapters are highly personal accounts, while others are more abstract and theoretical discussions of what makes up the politics of the environment. You will be impressed to discover how much actual and intellectual territory this covers, and how particular views of history shape a sense of where politics actually occurs. Additionally, the editors have made a conscious effort to provide weblinks to the original documents that tell the story of the high-profile struggle over this "old-growth" forest controversy. This lets you get behind the analysis and descriptions to actually see how social science research is conducted. Overall, and excellent introduction to environmental politics as both an academic and activist pursuit.

Outstanding! I reviewed several histories of Minnesota, and I came to the conclusion that this book is the best general history of Minnesota for most readers. It's very readable, concise, and enjoyable storytelling. The most important and most interesting Minnesota stories are told well. The basics of American history are also woven into the story, so this is the story of Minnesota's journey within the context of American history. A useful map with the most important and interesting historical sites to visit is included as a helpful guide. Useful lists by category of important things you can see are also included throughout the book as the story unfolds.

Other history books, unfortunately, are ruined by boring academic facts and poor story-telling, but not this book. I recommend this book for a quick and enjoyable read on Minnesota. Highest recommendation.

On the back cover are these positive reviews:

"Norman Risjord recounts Minnesota's past with the studied approach of an accomplished historian and the engaging style of a crowd-pleasing storyteller. If only all state histories were this enjoyable to read."
-Dave Kenney, author of "Northern Lights: The Stories of Minnesota's Past" and "Minnesota Goes to War: The Home Front During World War II." [Northern Lights is used in Minnesota Schools]

"'A Popular History of Minnesota' captures in one volume the thing that makes the state unique. It is, and always has been, a playground. But not as we've been led to believe. We learn here that Minnesota was not only the field of play for Dakota and Ojibwe, but for J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller. It is a vast and fascinating history. Norman K. Risjord has found a way to put it in a finely written, single book."
-Don Shelby, WCCO 4 News anchor and reporter

Maude Kegg is an elder of Mille Lacs reservation in Minnesota. A well known beadwork artist, she's also known as a cultural preserver. In 1970, she became Ojibwe language teacher to Nichols, then a linguistics graduate student at the University of Minnesota (who has recently completed editing an Ojibwe dictionary -- the first since that of Bishop Baraga in 1898). In this book, Maude tells many stories of her girlhood in th late 19th century. She grew up among traditional people who had almost no contact with white people. Though there are a few myths and legends here, these are stories she was told, and they are part of some daily event of her life. The stories are on facing pages in English and Ojibwe. Maude's stories are good and cast a new light on Ojibwe history, but in many respects this is a book for linguists and serious students of the Ojibew language. Reviewed by Paula Giese, from her web page.

"Portrait of America" was a popular video documentary series in the mid-eighties, a product of collaboration between Superstation/Turner Broadcasting Corporation and Ambrose Home Video. Well-researched, each video is divided into 5 segments covering most unique historical, social, and cultural aspects of each state. Watching such an interesting documentary, each being roughly about 50 minutes long, without advertisements and other interruptions seems to be a privilege in these days!

As a hard-core modernist, I've been puzzled by this whole postmodern phenomena, which, to me, seemed impenetrable, so the title of this book caught my eye. Further, Lyotard has been called the theoretician of the postmodern, hence this book seemed like a good place to start trying to understand the postmodern. The book contains an afterward by Wlad Godzich that I found to be extremely helpful (read it first). I cannot claim to understand the postmodern, even after reading this book, but I have some insight into how it can make us more aware of the modern, which is characterized by a belief in universals and the project of improvement and emancipation of all humanity from bondage. Legitimacy for the actions toward that end was believed to stem from the Idea of this ultimate condition. However, 20th Century history has cast doubt on both the theoretical underpinnings (legitimacy) and practice of progress (how could the modern project have led to Auschwitz?). It is this doubt that created a postmodern awareness. 'Post' not in the sense of following, but in the sense of complexity subsuming and overwhelming the naive (unexamined) nature of this long standing project of progress.