North America Books

Adrian Louis kicks butt! Ceremonies of the Damned is the best poetry book I've read in years. He's sad and funny at the same time. He sees right through this pile of crap we call "America." I really loved this book. Check out his hilarious "Copulation" poem. Yeah!

Ceremonies of the Damned literally knocked the air from my lungs. One of the harshest and most beautiful poetry books I have ever read. Get it!

Ceremonies of the Damned by Adrian Louis is truly a collection of poems that is wrought with moral destruction. Louis leaves a lot to the imagination. Did he really sleep with his student Serena? He never really answers this. He lets the reader's imagination run. And what about his wife's Alzheimer's? How do you blame a man for being unfaithful to a woman who is just a shell of the woman he once loved(?). This collection of poetry is some of the best poetry that I have ever read. Louis paints a horrifying picture of reservation life that is decorated ever so slightly with a love for his wife that keeps his guilt alive and strong. I read this book beginning to end several times. Spellbinding!

Adrian Louis's Ceremonies of the Damned is a book wrought from love so rare that it destroys down to the last particle the image of the emotionless Indian man. It is the personal tragic journey of dealing with the tragedy of losing one's life partner to a debilitating disease, Altzheimers, and is a pain-filled love story. Ceremonies is the best book of poetry written by a Native American man in the whole history of native literature. It begins with the human contradicitions in character in a poem entitled "Petroglyphs of Serena," in which Louis documents an affair. The stage is set for what comes later. We have to question if the disease that afflicts his wife is a direct result of infidelity? Maybe. Without this preface, though, I believe, we would elevate Louis to sainthood. In the end, without this poem, we as readers would not be privey to the real human contradictions at work in Ceremonies. There are implications to our own lives. The last poem, too, is a remarkable testimony of human resiliency wherein Louis, despite his pain, is still able to ask if there is still the possibility of love. Between the two ends of this spectrum are: beauty, pain, tragedy, and anger. Louis is a fine-tuned poet that pulls you from laughter to tears in a few lines. I read this book from front to back in one sitting; I could not put it down. When I finished reading it, I wept.

This authoritative and often engaging biography of a figure today who is relatively little known, French explorer Samuel de Champlain, would translate into a wonderful Hollywood film, with the protagonist shooting rapids in a birchbark canoe, hunting with the Algonquin, Huron and Montagnais Indians and accompanying them on war parties against the Iroquois tribes and then returning to France to conduct a different kind of warfare in the courts of Henri IV and Louis XIII in hopes of expanding his beloved New France on the banks of the St. Lawrence River.
Of course, the author has another goal in mind. Eminent historian David Hackett Fischer's goal (or one of them) is to salvage Champlain's reputation. The seaman and explorer, he insists, was not among those who wantonly wreaked havoc on native religions, cultures, economic and political organizations as did the Spanish through Central and South America and later arrivals everywhere from the St. Lawrence down to the coast of Florida. Rather, Fischer insists and largely demonstrates, Champlain was a different breed, a man for whom shared humanity and mutual respect mattered more than the differences between the Europeans and the Indians.
Fischer proves his point to a great degree, but in doing so he distorts the narrative in ways that undermine the book's utility as a biography. Early on, he is prone to sweeping statements about Champlain and his environment for which there appears to be little evidence (or at least, nothing that is cited.) Just one example "He was not a man who would have been content to remain in the rear echelon." That may be true, given his later adventures, but early on in the narrative, we are being asked to take the biographer's word for this and other such sweeping statements on Champlain's character.
Over and over and over, Fischer tells us how fascinated Champlain was by the lives of the many different tribes he encountered. In many of those cases, the evidence speaks for itself, and the repeated editorialization becomes tedious in the same way that an old man recounting the same war story at every family gathering over decades becomes a bore over time.
At times, Fischer's obvious affection for and defense of Champlain does seem to cross the line from biography to hagiography. A key issue is Champlain's response to the tortures to which his Huron and Algonquin allies subjected their Iroquois captives. He deplored it, but almost never intervened. Here Fischer seems to want to have and eat his cake, simultaneously. Should Champlain have intervened more forcibly? By contemporary Western standards, certainly. But from the native perspective, it would have been (and may still be viewed as) an unwarranted intrusion by a Westerner into their time-honored traditions. How to dispose of this tricky issue? Fischer makes a vague gesture in the direction of mentioning Indian spiritual practices and the role torture may have played in this (without giving the reader enough of a context to understand this fully or judge). This emerges on a broader scale when Fischer deals with Champlain's judgment of the Indians as having "ni foi, ni loi, ni roi" -- neither faith, law or kin -- and doesn't question in any meaningful way that conclusion, on which Champlain based most of his broader ideals and policy. I suspect that those who have studied the belief systems of the Iroquois and other tribes would differ with this analysis and argue that simply because the faith, systems of law or governance could not be understood by Champlain does not mean they didn't exist.
Those flaws aside, this book is an admirable accomplishment and will be of great interest to anyone interested in the earliest systematic voyages of exploration by Europeans in North America, those which led directly to the earliest settlements from Quebec southward to Florida. Yes, Champlain's discoveries largely revolved around geographical territory that is now Canada, but his voyages took him to New Spain and he explored the coasts of Maine and Massachussets in the earliest days. His detailed observations of the lands he encountered were some of the most systematic and analytical to reach Europe, and weren't filtered through the prism of religion or economic opportunity.
Highly recommended for anyone who isn't worried by the author's unabashed partiality for his subject. Anyone interested in learning about the later clashes between the settlers that Champlain and his heirs introduced to New France -- later known as 'pure laine' (literally pure wool) Quebeckers -- should turn to the lively polemic by Mordecai Richler that tackles the legacy of the Quebec myths and reality in the 20th century and onward. Oh Canada! Oh Quebec!: Requiem for a Divided Country

David Hackett Fischer's new full-length biography of Samuel de Champlain is pure nectar to the serious reader of history. Full of life, vivid, entertaining, fascinating and full of insight, this is biography at its best. Painted on the vast canvas of sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe and North America, we see a fully developed portrait of a fascinating and complex individual who played such a key role in the unfolding of North American culture and civilization.

This biography is worthy to stand beside the best of our generation: John Adams, The Path to Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume 1), The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 1874-1932. Oddly, it also calls to mind the fictional work of Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1), The Confusion (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 2) and The System of the World (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 3) by Neal Stephenson with its fascinating scope and historical detail.

Among the plethora of insights gleaned from Fischer is his description of the French quality of "prevoyance," which has no exact corrollary in English. Prevoyance is not so much the ability to foresee the future as the ability to prepare for the unexpected in a world of danger, complexity and uncertainty. Champlain is the prime example of the quality of "prevoyance," Fischer shows. We follow this prevoyant man from boyhood in the harbor towns of the Gulf of Saintonge in the Bay of Biscay, with its teeming, crowded ports full of people of all nations, where he is exposed to many different economies, cultures and languages. We accompany him later in his years of soldiering and participation in the bloody religious wars of the sixteenth century, then on the quasi-military exploring expeditions to the New World with Frobisher, where Champlain is deeply offended by the atrocities committed upon the native peoples (chronicled, by the way, in a series of remarkable paintings produced by Champlain and included in full color in this beautifully produced volume). Later, we follow Champlain in his adventures in Paris court of Henri IV, where Champlain held the title of "royal geographer" as he worked in the basement of the Louvre. And finally, we return over the Atlantic with Champlain where he takes up his lifework of building New France and founding the great French capitols of the New World.

This book amply testifies of the arrival of Fischer in the topmost rung of working biographers not only of our day but perhaps of the last century. He not only has the archivist's mastery of the vast corpus of source documents, but the rare talent to create a man out of the sources. Reading this book is as transporting and joyful an enterprise as reading a great novel. Worthy of five stars, and more!

David Hackett Fischer, previous winner for his writings on American History, continues his winning ways with this book about the early French explorer of early post-Colombian America. This book is a window into a little examined or understood period in the discovery of America. I highly recommend this book.

I appreciate his narrative style, without an agenda or ax to grind. This history is not for the ideological nor the squeamish. It's one of those books that you don't want to end. It made me wish I could have seen North America as Champlain did--wild, fertile, a truly New World. Highly recommended. Also recommended by the author: Washington's Crossing.

This year - 2008 - marks the 400th anniversary of the founding of Quebec or New France, as it was called then. There is an exhibition in Quebec commemorating the founding called Champlain's Dream, appropriately named after this book, an excellent biography of the founding father. David Hackett Fischer is an historian who, though not exactly popular, is widely read outside academia. His most famous work is Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America (America: a Cultural History), a very interesting study of the American appropriation of certain Britsh subcultures during the 17th century (Puritan, Scots-Irish, etc.) In the present work he tells the story of Samuel de Champlain and his attempts to create an enlightened New France. Champlain was a polymath: a soldier, a sailor, cartographer, ethnographer, naturalist, artist, writer, and political leader. It could be said that he was a Renaissance Man who was well on his to becoming a man of the Enlightenment.

Champlain was born in the "cosmopolitan town" of Brouage on the west coast of France. He was born into a wealthy Protestant merchant family and lived at peace with Catholics, even during the religious wars. He had learned tolerance growing up in this milieu. French king Henri IV, with whom the family had ties, was also a Prostestant and favored religious tolerance. It was not until the invasion of France by Spanish Catholic extremists that both Champlain and Henri IV were forced to convert to Catholicism. Their new faith was not dogmatic but rather a Christian humanism that was receptive to new ideas and the pursuit of knowledge in order to better serve God.

The second most influential event in Champlain's early life was the opportunity to accompany a Spanish fleet to New Spain. There he witnessed firsthand the cruelty with which the Spanish treated the Indian population. He was determined that New France would treat its subjects with more dignity and respect.

It was in 1608 - 400 hundred years ago - that he was recruited by Henri IV - due to his considerable polymathic talents - to explore the waterways of the St. Lawrence and establish the colony of New France. He quickly established ties with the local tribes: the Montagnais, the Algonquin, and the Huron. This, however, incurred the wrath of the enemies of those tribes: the Iroquois League. There were numerous battles between the French and the Indians in which Champlain participated. Fischer's account of Champlain's arquebus (primitive shotgun) is very good. It was a muzzle-loaded hand-cannon that scared the daylights out of the Iroquois. Champlain was more interested in scaring them off than conquering them.

Although Champlain was tolerant and humane for a person of his place and time, he was still a colonialist who demanded that the Indians become Christians and that they submit to the French political system. Champlain's dream of bringing Enlightenment values to the New World failed because Enlightenment never completely took hold in France, nor had he himself completely accepted them.

I have had this book and gave it to a friend and now I have to replace it. I depended on the daily mediations to give me a positive or clear thought to start my day. It parallels the daily mediations of christianity so closely it makes you realize there truely is only one "Great Spirit". This book has enhanced my life. Until I found this book I only had my christian beliefs of mediations. Now I have something that I can relate to through heritage. I have shared the passages in this book with many friends and it has touched their hearts as deeply as mine. Thank you Joyce Sequichie Hifler.

Inspirational books always failed to inspire me until "A Cherokee Feast of Days." Joyce Sequitchie Hifler delves into my soul and finds the very best, strongest parts of ME. By including the wisdom of native elders, she gives us a perspective of "time," of each day, as a healer and as an opportunity to, simply put, "do good." Hifler is like the sunflower: her roots run deep in the red clay earth and her face smiles up to God reflecting the blessings which he has bestowed upon her and upon all of us. I have given this book to many of my friends. Prepare to have your outlook on life uplifted forever! Hifler makes me even more proud to be blessed with my grandmother's Tsalagi blood.

Certainly one of the most elegant daily devotional books available today. Hifler is both poet and spiritual guide. This book is a real treat!

A friend gave me this book as a gift in 1993. I have read a meditation almost every day since. I find it to be uplifting and thought provoking and at the same time centering on things that really matter. The meditations remind me that family and earth matter so much more than materialistics. My daughter also reads daily and has been searching for one as a gift.

This is THE seminal history of the Cherokee Nation prior to removal. Written by a professor of religious history at Brown University, it is easy to see how he got swept away from his area of expertise and into the amazingly interesting story of the early years of the Cherokee Nation.

McLoughlin does not romaticize the Cherokee Nation, as many other historians do, but tells a clear story of a complicated time and place. His research is impeccable, and the book is well written. As to the merit of his historical analysis, it is mind-numbingly and brilliantly ground-breaking: the sort of stuff that a historian goes his entire life looking to discover. All that I can say is that this book completely changed the direction of my personal study and when I get a PhD in early American History with a concentration on the Cherokee Nation, it will be entierly due to this book.

I also heartily recomend "Cherokees and Missionairies." McLoughlin also has a very good essay on Samuel Worcester in the book "Massachusetts and the New Nation" which is a major undiscovered gem.

William McLoughlin offers one of the first looks at Cherokee society in his work on the evolution of the Cherokee tribe. This book takes the Cherokees through the early part of the American republic up through removal. Using journals and letters from Indian agents the book traces what happened to the tribe as the "civilization" efforts of the United States government were unleashed. The book tracks what changed in the nation from property rights, to gender roles, to the missionary work being conducted. Encroachment of settlers, states rights, and federal policy all played a role in shaping the outcome of one of the tribes that was seen as the "five civilized nations". Overall the book is well done, thorough and provide a unique insight into what happened to the Cherokees.

From 1794 until 1834 the Cherokee Nation underwent a change unlike any civilization in the world, past, present or future. It is this time period on which the book focuses. The author covers the years before and after his "Cherokee Renascence" in the first and final chapter.

When people write the history of the Cherokee in Georgia it is understandable that they concentrate on the years leading up to the "Trail of Tears." This tragic event overshadows the history of this Nation, and as William McLoughlin shows us, it is a history rich with acheivement and accomplishment, from the development of a written language by Sequoyah to the adaptation of that language by a majority of the Nation in a 6-month time frame, establishment of a government and newspaper (the Cherokee Phoenix, first American Indian newspaper) and many other accomplishments.

McLoughlin does not pull punches, as many who cover the time period and he does not have an agenda. He accurately recounts the details of the flourishing civilization while describing the evolution of a second society, those who disagreed with the decidedly nationalistic moves of its leaders to protect itself against the desires of the United States and the government of Georgia. Interestingly, Sequoyah was one of the Cherokee against the movement towards nationalism.

A compelling read, factually backed and well researched.

A comprehensive history of the Cherokees up to the Trail of Tears. This history covers the building of a great nation that was able to maintain its own culture while integrating with the developing America, and its subsequent downfall.

the book was in excellent condition. and i would recommend the seller to others. i am satisfied with the service i got.

Frances Densmore lived with and studied the Chippewa people of Minnesota for several years. Her research has proved an invaluable resource for anyone wishing to know more about this fascinating cultural group. This book is chock full of information, from naming ceremonies to marriage customs to burial rites. If it were not for Mrs. Densmore, many valuable facts on an important people group would be lost

Chippewa Customs is a detailed and facinating book, containing extensive information that will assist in my research on the history of the Chippewa tribe. This is my first tool to begin my search for distant ancestors. God bless the Author Frances Densmore.

I wasn't sure what I was expecting when I picked up "Chippewa Customs" by Frances Densmore. Written in the early part of the 20th century, it's a book that has remained readable and certainly enjoyable throughout the years.

Frances Densmore paints a very vivid picture of the Chippewa/Ojibwe people, from how they picked their names, to what they wore in winter, to the fact that they liked fish-heads as a delicacy, or the sleeping arrangements inside the family wigwam. It's absolutely screaming-full of all those little details that you're constantly trying to find but never can seem to put your finger on.

They're right here, of course! My only complaint is that the ceremonies (Marriage, births, etc) are only touched upon barely. I would have liked to hear more about those particular aspects.

I had to read this book for a class, and it's definitely better than most of the required reading I've had. If you like F. Scott Fitzgerald and J.D. Salinger, where there is no action but it's a very enriching experience for the character, then you will probably like the book. If you like Michael Crichton or Tom Clancy and are stupid like 90% of everybody else out there, then you probably won't.

Choteau Creek: A Sioux Reminiscence by Joseph Iron Eye Dudley was an easy read, and I was almost turned off by the simple and straightforward style. However, in the end, it is what made the book so enchanting. There were no hidden agendas or questions left unanswered- just a simple story of a man's childhood filled with people everyone should be lucky enough to learn from. This is not to say the book did not deal with deep issues, just that the way they were presented was very easy to grasp. But then again, I would hope the love felt in this book was always this simple and wonderful.

This is a truly tremendous book! Among my personal list of favorites. I found this book quite by accident years ago in a local bookstore and it continues to impact me today. I recommend it wherever I go and have had my own teenage sons and other family members read it. It should be on high school and college reading lists. The style is simple yet heartfelt. The themes so meaningful yet rare in todays world. Themes such as real character, unselfishness, solid role models, tradition, and attachment to place are woven throughout the text. Read it!

I am reminded of a saying I once heard: People may come to dinner, but a true friend helps you wash the dishes. This book presents friends. I can picture Grandma as she tells stories of her childhood or humbly contemplates the meaning of the owl's call. She remains with me after the book is finished. This is a good book for those who need to see the beauty and small acts of kindness and generosity that are triumphant in the face of hardship.

Jack Bell's "Civil War Heavy Explosive Ordnance" is a superb black and white photographic catalog of ammunition for heavy artillery (4" and larger.) It is the natural companion to Olmstead, Stark and Tucker's "The Big Guns." The book is geared more toward the collector than as a technical historical reference, but still can fill the latter role in many ways. While a picture might not be worth a full thousand words, it certainly helps.

The first 470 pages contain introductory text, a glossary, and the catalog of heavy ordnance. The next 26 pages contain a photographic catalog of torpedoes (mines.) Thirty pages of appendices follow, and the book ends with a bibliography and index.

The heavy ordnance is divided into two sections: large smoothbore projectiles, and rifled projectiles. The smoothbore section is subdivided into: shot, shell and case shot; canister; and grape. Rifled projectiles are then subdivided into twenty-seven major types and one miscellaneous group.

The general form of each entry is a brief introduction of a page or several pages about the type (Archer, Hotchkiss, Dyer, etc.) and then the following pages contain one to three images of each size and type of projectile of that type. When three images of a given projectile are provided they are viewed straight on from top, bottom, and side. Some images of shell or case are half sections. Entries below each set of photographs provide diameter, length, weight, gun, sabot, fuze, rifling, rarity, provenance, and comments.

My quibbles with this work are minor. Some of the recessed spaces and contour relief are difficult or impossible to interpret with a 90-degree angle view and no shadows. Case shot appears to have been under represented. Projectile counts and burst charges (known or estimated) are largely omitted.

Although the text introductory sections for each type are short, they provide some answers to long standing puzzles. For example the Archer projectiles are finally attributed to the correct Archer, Dr. Robert Archer. The Mullane has been renamed the "Tennessee" and attributed to the correct actual designer, Capt. Lardner Gibbon.

The appendices are also particularly useful. There is a list of missing and unaccounted for rounds in Appendix A, a list of rifling types by caliber in Appendix B, as well as the detailed review of rifled sabot systems in Appendix C.

Lamentably, this book (like "The Big Guns") is not on many Civil War site bookstore shelves, although I did see one at the naval museum in Columbus, Georgia.

It has been a long awaited moment in my 40+ years of experience in dealing with artillery projectiles of the American Civil War to see a book of this caliber in print. It is the most comprehensive guide or research tool for those with an interest in this field. It is appropriate for the novice and the more proficient.

Mr. Bell, along with a multitude of hours doing research and the aide of his peers, was able to compile an impressive array of photographs (350+) and information for the reader.

The book references shells from 4" and up; including round balls, projectiles, torpedoes, land mines, and a chapter on sabot designs.

I highly recommend Mr. Bell's book to those who want to expand their knowledge of Civil War heavy artillery.

Civil War Heavy Explosive Ordnance: A Guide To Large Artillery Projectiles, Torpedoes, And Mines by Civil War expert Jack Bell is a straightforward, highly specialized, exhaustively detailed, 537-page reference to the large munitions employed in the Civil War. A brief introduction and glossary enhance this unique volume, yet the bulk its pages are devoted to specific ammunitions with each shell accompanied by a black-and-white photograph as well as scale measurements, brief commentary, dimensions, and a listing of where they were most often used. Civil War Heavy Explosive Ordnance is a truly impressive and invaluable resource for Civil War historians and military history buffs.

CIVIL WAR HEAVY EXPLOSIVE ORDANCE, by well-known collector JACK BELL, presents an in-depth study of Civil War heavy artillery projectiles, mines and torpedoes. His lifelong association with the CW artillery fraternity provided access to public and private collections containing heretofore-unknown examples of heavy munitions. The author's meticulous research uncovered buried and previously overlooked information and provided important technical and geographic information vital for the in-depth study of the use of heavy explosive ordnance in the war. The result is a highly documented reference source that closes a thirty-year information gap, and significantly advances the state of knowledge about the development and deployment during the war.

CIVIL WAR HEAVY EXPLOSIVE ORDANCE is a necessary tool for the serious artillery collector yet provides interesting reading for the student of general Civil War history. The book contains over 1000 clear photographs and multiple views of the 360 projectiles and 22 torpedoes and mines. Jack Bell's presentation is lucid and while professionally technical is delivered in an extremely readable style.

Although very popular in its day; Longfellow's "Song of Hiawatha" was later viewed to be superficial and saccharine. Where as Walt Whitman may have spoken with more of an organic American voice, Longfellow drew upon English Romantic models and looked to Norse and especially the Finnish epic or "edda" "Kalevala" for inspiration.

Not with standing; Longfellow's saga is pure New England Renaissance; touching upon values and aesthetics characteristic of Longfellow's circle: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Emerson and Thoreau.

The nature-painting of the "Song of Hiawatha" is outstanding; the poetry is full of quotables; and the over-arching message is profound.

An undying tale.. legend... song... Wonderful poetry, the language is simply astounding! I have read the russian translation by Bounin, which was as remarkable as the original.

A book for generations. Mine was published 1898 and given me by my mother whose father(b.1875) gave it to her. It goes to the heart of the Indian race, a people susceptible to mythology and magic as their last great hope. Read it with an open mind, imagination, and for its beauty.

"The Song of Hiawatha" is the best book I have ever been exposed to. Every time I hear the wonderful rhyme of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, I begin to think of what this land was like before the Europeans conquered it. It is a wonderful tale of peace between nations and a great book to read to children.

The seller sold the book in the condition which described. It arrived in a timely manner and enabled me to save money, and not waste time!

If you are a novice in the study of colonial Latin America, this book is a good place to start. Burkholder and Johnson have covered just about every aspect of society and politics in colonial Latin America from pre-Columbian cultures to the struggles for independence in the 1800's. The book covers religion, slavery, the environmental impact of Europeans, government structures, gender roles, racial issues, economics, and family history as well as developments back in Europe that had reverberations in Latin America. One very helpful aspect of the book is that unfamiliar Spanish terms are in italics and a glossary of all such italicized words can be found in the back of the book. Most people have heard of Cortes, Montezuma, and Pizarro, but Burkholder and Johnson are especially strong on the less familiar story of what happened once the Spanish and Portuguese had taken control in the New World. This book covers only Spanish and Portuguese America, so if you are interested in the French, Dutch, or English enclaves in the Caribbean, you will need to look elsewhere. Specialists will be familiar with all the themes in this book, but for beginners it is an excellent introduction to the subject. Burkholder and Johnson periodically update the book so as to keep it on the cutting edge of current scholarship. Anyone interested in doing more research will also benefit from up-to-date bibliographies at the end of each chapter.

Latin America is a fascinating area of study. My recent grad class in the subject exposed me to much new material such as this book (our basic text)

Burkholder and Johnson have done an exhausative study of both poltical and cultural history of Spanish & Portuguese colonial America. They covered the various periods of the colonies under expansionism, Imperial neglience, Bourbon reforms,and the rebellions that gave the region its freedom from the mother country.

The detail is impressive. Shipping numbers, industrial production, political reform, the lives of the majority Indians and Metizo commoners...it's all here. Slavery in all it's permutations is covered as well as the absurd attempts to name the various racial combinations that resulted in a multi cultural society.

For both the novice and the dedicated historian, this book cannot come highly recommended enough.

I have to give this book a good review because I got an A in Dr. Lyman Johnson's (the book's co-author with Mark Burkholder) Colonial Latin America class at UNC Charlotte - of course he made us buy this book as the required textbook! Johnson was a fasinating storyteller and quite a funny lecturer, and he really knows his stuff. He's one of the best professors on the UNC-Charlotte faculty.

The book is full of information with a simple and concise organization. Latin America's colonial period was long and complex yet simple at the same time, and this book explains it well. The Spanish conquest of Mexico has to be one of the most interesting events in human history.

My complaint is that Dr. Johnson was such a joy in the classroom, but the humor and wit did not translate to the book.

Common Birds of North America (Midwest edition) is an excellent resource for identifying all the birds I see in my Wisconsin home yard. One page per bird provides a good and simple overview to identify the birds and how to attract them to my back yard. It explains the differences between male and female coloring, nesting habits, food preferences, migration, etc. My book is all dog eared now from use. I bought one for mom for Christmas along with a birdhouse and feeder.

After you locate the bird you see using the Peterson Flash Guide, then you will want to utilize this book so that you can find out all the specifics about the bird, like what they eat, nesting and what time of year they are likely to be observed in your area.

Filled with exquisite full-color illustrations, Common Birds Of North America: Midwest Edition by James Wilson (Missouri Department of Conservation State Ornithologist) is an excellent guidebook for birdwatchers of all experience levels. Each species features a fine full-page portrait showing male and female specimens if the plumage is very different, and a one-page summary of the bird's habitat, call, typical behavior, and more. A concise, elegant guide, Common Birds Of North America: Midwest Edition is an invaluable resource for birdwatchers.

Wow. Having watched Jim doodle birds and landscapes in pen and ink during staff meetings at the conservation department, I should not have been surprised at the accuracy and quality of his illustrations in this book. Aside from the gorgeous images of the birds and their settings, Jim also manages to capture elements of the birds' songs and behavior in easy-to-read text. It's a great book for people who are interested in learning how bird species make their livings as well as how to identify them. I bought one for my Mom (who loves to watch her bird feeder visitors), and she loved it.