Hofstra Books

This was a very professionally written account of the lives of 15 very diverse people who also happen to be professional lacrosse players. The book really makes you view these athletes as interested in their sport, valued members of their community, and very different from the multi-million dollar primma donnas who play other professional sports. I definitely recommend this book.

After the Duke Lacrosse scandal, it was refreshing to see an upbeat well-written book about lacrosse. These players truly honor their sport, and make the casual observer want to learn more. The stories were interesting, and it was a good overview of the NLL, and the players who make the league work. I really enjoyed it, and hope to see more books like it.

This book was interesting, insightful, and sometimes even funny when explaining the lives of 15 "ordinary" people who have jobs, wives, kids, and play professional lacrosse on the weekends. It makes you realize how different pro lacrosse is from other pro sports. (And I mean that in a good way.) The writing was clear and engaging, and I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

It was great to finally read a good book on professional lacrosse. The writing was interesting and insightful, and provided a good mix of lacrosse history combined with people who play the game. I would definitely recommend this book for the lacrosse fanatic, or even the casual observer. I enjoyed it!

This book is filled with stories of professional lacrosse players. The players are atypical from other professional sports players, who are often filled with self-admiration and greed. Yet, they are not exactly everyday people either. The players do have full time jobs and families, but many of them are in noble fields such as teaching, law enforcement, the armed forces, fire fighting... Of course, it takes a noble character to be devoted to such an underpaid and under-appreciated sport. The players sacrifice their bodies, time, and some family commitments for the love of their sport. The writing is clever, and the author gives good insight about the players' individuality, achievements, reminiscences, and dedication.

This is an awesome book of Native American Hymns & songs. We use this in our Indian Methodist Church every Sunday. We are so glad for this book.

This book is one in an excellent continuing series of "Witchcraft and Magic in Europe". This entry in the series concerns the history and practice of European witchcraft and magic in the 20th century,(and the book is focused on Europe and particularly Britain. There is only scant information on witchcraft and magic in North America). This is a refreshing objective study which approaches the subject from a sociological/anthropological approach; it is not intended as an apologia for witchcraft or neo-paganism, nor is it intended as a deconstruction of the topics. Also refreshing is that the writers spend little time "psychoanalyzing" and "rationalizing". What you get here is factual, fairly objective reporting. The book is divided in three sections: I.Modern Pagan Witchcraft-it's cultural and spiritual antecedents and history. Especially important here is the treatment of Margaret Murray, Gerald Gardner and Crowley. Also fascinating is the information provided on how the "paganism" of the Romantic Movement provided impetus for the later development of full blown "pagan revival" religions. (Also, as an enticement for you...did you know that Wicca and the Boy Scouts have a common ancestor! ) For readers hungry for historical facts on the "new" religions of Wicca and NeoPaganism, this section of the book provides valuable information. The author of this section, Ronald Hutton of the University of Bristol, seems confident that Wiccans and NeoPagans are ready for this kind of objective exegesis. I'm not so sure... II.Satanism and Satanic Mythology-written by Jean La Fontaine of the London School of Economics; level-headed and factual. La Fontaine details the brief history of this small and very recent religious movement and also debunks much of the satanic abuse hysteria whipped up by some conservative Christian groups, there just ain't no "there" there when it comes to these charges. As in the Pagan Witchcraft section, La Fontaine does not bore us with trite psychoanalysis, but just good reporting. Important here is the objective study La Fontaine gives to The Church of Set as opposed to La Vey Satanism; heretofore most studies of these two movements have taken "sides" in the oft-times bitter feuding between the two. My only objection to this section is the lumping of Asatru/Odinism and Northern European Heathenism in this section instead of either in a section of it's own or as a corollary section to Pagan Witchcraft. While some, if not most, of Northern European Heathenism does contain some of the same religio-political concerns as some satanic groups, it is also strikingly dis-similar and deserves to be studied in its own right rather as a "cousin" of satanism. III.The Continued Existence of Traditional Witchcraft...maybe. This section, actually an overview of the cultural anthropology of witch folklore and "bewitchment", demonstrates how difficult it is to really form a cohesive argument that if organized witchcraft existed at all in the past, there is very little evidence for it. All we have is a bewildering host of healing traditions, "hexes" and remedies against hexes, and whether this is evidence of the survival of witchcraft, shamanism or simply folk-ways, is hard to say. The authors are remarkably open to the possibility of real withcraft traditions that pre-date Wicca, but demonstrate the lack of evidence for it. For students of Mysticism, religious arcana and the Occult, this volume provides a wealth of information about this fascinating, and curious, part of the Western Esoteric Tradition.

WITCHCRAFT AND MAGIC IN EUROPE - THE TWENTIETH CENTURY is number six in a series of six volumes covering the history of magic and witchcraft in Europe from ancient to modern times. Most of these volumes have included first rate scholarship. The fourth (and last) volume in the series, entitled, "The Period of the Witch Trials," will be published later this year.

Series authors have attempted to define witchcraft and magic for each of the covered periods. The major impression one receives on reading these books is that the concepts or witchcraft and magic as well as the operational definitions are many and varied. As Willem de Blecourt of the Huizinga Institute in the Netherlands notes in his section in this volume, "Local witchcraft discourses are accentuated and even defined by the locally current value systems." Blecourt's article is by far the best of the three in the book.

The first two sections of this book deal with witchcraft (Ronald Hutton, Bristol University) and Satanism (Jean la Fontaine, London School of Economics) as practiced in the 20th Century according to "modern" practitioners. These two sections are really more news article than scholarly essay. Each author has assembled material widely available to the public in autobiographical and biographical form, and to a certain extent "participated" in and "observed" some of the practices discussed. Both authors make it clear that Wicca (the Anglo-Saxon variant) and Satanism have nothing to do with each other. Wicca, or witchcraft as some practitioners prefer to call it, is considered by it's adherents to predate Christianity by several million years. Satanism, on the other hand, is based on the Hebrew word that means "the opposed" and requires historical references to Christianity that Wiccans eschew. The members of these two very different groups apparently loath each other. Many of the Wiccans are feminists while many of the Satanists have connections to neo-Nazis. The rationale for Wiccans is love the Earth, while that of the Satanists appears to be tear it up. Apparently, overly zealous and poorly educated Christians confuse the two. The Wiccans have been invited by the Archbishop to Canterbury Cathedral, the Satanists have not.

My favorite essay is the last, Blecourt's piece on witchcraft in Europe from the anthropologist's perspective. Most of his material comes from France, Spain, and the Netherlands. He includes material on Frisian witches, the work of Pitt-Rivers (an institute at Oxford University is named for him) who became famous for his studies of witchcraft in Andalusia, and Favret-Saada who studied witchcraft in the Bocage in France. Blecourt suggests anthropologists are faced with a perplexing situation in the attempt to study witchcraft-who to adopt as an informer. The person who informs you shapes your experience. The witch, the bewitched, and the unwitcher form a triangle with three perspectives. In the end, each will have a different tale, but you won't be able to get all three of them to confide in you. Blecourt suggests all the ethnographer can do is see witchcraft from a liminal perspective-i.e. barely at all or at the edge of perception.

This is an outstanding book, filled with terrific teaching ideas and concepts. I especially enjoyed reading the background information that was included about the contributors.
Teachers and parents will all enjoy ths book, and learn a great deal from reading it.
Many thanks to the contributors and editors.

As a former high school social studies teacher, and a current college professor who teaches "Methods" classes for future social studies teachers, I found this book helpful in a number of ways. First of all, Singer knows his subject, and writes in an interesting and engaging way. The plain fact is that "Methods" textbooks in social studies are either dry as toast or are segments of more general Methods books whose authors do not really know social studies. Second, the most important advice Singer provides is that teachers have to plan in advance why a certain lesson, or unit, or approach is worthwhile -- in short, that they have to be engaged in their subject matter. While many students today (certainly in my university) will not be engaged in the same way as Singer (who came to social studies teaching from a radical political perspective, expecting to change the world via the classroom), students do have to develop a perspective on why they are teaching, and Singer's open-ended activities and thought experiments are very useful here. Finally, Singer does have good nuts and bolts suggestions on how to put together lessons, units, and even curricula, though the last usually depends on district policy so his advice may not be able to be implemented by many teachers, let alone student teachers. I would be the first to agree that some of Singer's suggestions are impractical or dated, and that the resources section of any textbook get dated very quickly in the internet age, but I wish my student teachers would consult this book more frequently once they begin their assignments in the classroom. While Singer would probably deny it, my assessment is that the book is geared overly much to U.S. History, and does not treat in as much detail as would be warranted World History, U.S. Government, and other standard social studies topics.

Save your money!! If this book is required for a college class do not waste the money on it. There is not a single useful piece of advice. The author apparantly has never been in a real classroom or spoken to a real high school student.

His advice is condescending and just plain wrong. The sample lesson plans are not practical for real life! The author gives instruction that are simply contradictory to the real world.

This is one of the worst books that I have ever read. If I could give it zero stars I would!

Thoroughly enjoyed this fast read. Interesting to go back to the beginning of the 20th century and learn how life was for a single mother and young daughter in Boston. How proud Edwina was of what she had - not what she didn't have. This brought back conversations with my own mother who was born in 1905.