Indiana Books

The photographs, maps, travelers' accounts, physical reconstructions, and studies of the Bible that are the subject of this book once fired popular fantasies of the Holy Land. Nineteenth century visitors to the Chautauqua Institution used to walk through a large scale model of biblical Palestine, sometimes tucking a blade of grass into their pockets or purses. You can still take a tour and listen to Sunday evening lectures there. At the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904, a replica of Jerusalem covered eleven acres while today, some 300 miles to the southeast, a seven story high Christ of the Ozarks looks over a modern re-creation of the Holy Land set in the hills of Arkansas. For home viewing there were tours via stereoscopic photographs, lavishly illustrated books such as Picturesque Palestine, and the reports of scholars who passed through the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem. All reached for an illusory touch of the "real" in the midst of fantasies about the Holy Land, as may still be seen in a reader friendly book written by John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan Reed, Excavating Jesus. These competing visions of the Holy Land were, and are, shaped by forms of Christianity and Judaism, and entangled with various political and ideological debates at home in America.

David Gunn, Bradford Professor of Religion at Texas Christian University wrote that Imagining the Holy Land is "remarkable and important...not only pertinent to an understanding of biblical criticism and popular culture in America...but crucially important to a nuanced understanding of American public discourse about Middle Eastern affairs today."

This is simply a marvelous book. I picked up an earlier edition a few years ago and still refer to it quite often for my own research into Lincoln. As Mr. Davenport stated in that edition, the book is a travel guide, not a biography. However, because of the fact that it is so well-researched and full of detail, it could almost pass for a biographical overview, especially of Lincoln's life in Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois, prior to his presidency.

I highly recommend this book for any Lincoln admirer, those who have a mild interest in the subject and especially for those who want to learn more. With Lincoln, there's always more to learn!

Drawn from an extensive oral history project, this work features twenty-seven oral histories of Hoosier broadcasters involved in a variety of broadcast occupations around Indiana from 1926 to the present. Topics explored are individual stations and the people who worked there, the evolution of technology and government regulation, the ethics of broadcasters, the impact of broadcasting on the public, and the future of the broadcast profession.

I found this book informative, entertaining and well researched. As an Indiana broacaster, the book gave me additional insight into our state's broadcast history and the individuals who helped pave the way for others to follow.

Daryl Jones has several books that follow this format - take a series of beautiful photos of Indiana and then get a Hoosier author to write an accompanying essay to complement the pictures.

In this case, he has worked with poet Jared Carter. Carter's essay is less rural than the other books, but it is wonderful in this difference. Thoroughly enjoyable - a book to share with Hoosiers who are proud of Indiana. If you are a fan of the Indy 500, check out what Carter has to say - he devotes a great deal of his essay to his memories of the Indy 500.

Good job gentleman! I give this one a grade of A.

Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky and he is buried in Illinois, but the 16th President grew upon the Indiana frontier. Ann Heinrichs reminds her young readers of that fact in "A State Built on Traditions," the first chapter of this look at "Indiana" for the America the Beautiful, Second Series. This informative volume will indicate that almost every aspect of life has changed for the Hoosiers of Indiana, but will also emphasize how the state is still most farmland and its traditional values are still very much alive.

Three chapters are devoted to the history of the state, beginning with Chapter Two, "Out of the Wilderness," which traces the region from the Mound Builders of the Mississippian culture that first settled the land to the territory becoming the 19th state following the last of the Indian Wars fought by General William Henry Harrison. Chapter Three, "Building the New State," looks at Indiana in the 19th century, while Chapter Four, "Into the Modern Age," covers the 20th century. The geography of the state is covered in Chapter Five, "Over the Hills and Plains," which divides the state into the Till Plains, the Great Lakes Plains, the Southern Hills and Lowlands.

Some of what you can see when you visit the state is the subject of Chapter Six, "Exploring Indiana," such as "Touchdown Jesus" at Notre Dame, the restored pioneer village at Conner Prairie, the George Rogers Clark National Historical Park, the Historic New Harmony utopian community, and Lincoln's restored boyhood home in Lincoln City. The politics of the state is explored in Chapter Seven, "Governing the Hoosier State," which is where young readers learn about the state river (Wabash River), which explains the state song ("On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away").

Chapter Eight, "Hoosiers at Work" is about the state's economy, which sees farmers raising ostriches and llamas along with the corn, hogs and soybeans that dominate the agriculture. This book has what is probably the simplest recipe in the series with grilled corn on the cob. Chapter Nine, "People Who Make a Difference" looks at where people live and the state's colleges. Chapter Ten, "Arts and Sports," covers the famous citizens of the state, which includes David Letterman, John Mellencamp, Cole Porter, James Whitcomb Riley, and Larry Bird.

Throughout the book there are dozens of informative sidebars where we get to find out about more famous Hoosiers, from Tecumseh to Mark Spitz, along with places to visit such as Wyandotte Cave and the Smoking Dune. You also get to find out why the Hoosiers are called Hoosiers. The book is filled with full-color photographs and original maps. When you get to the back of the book you will find a detailed Timeline comparing U.S. and Indiana state history, pages of Fast Facts that provide easy access to key statistics, and a list of books, organizations and Internet sites where young students can go To Find Out More.

Ever wonder what a "Hoosier" really is? This book will tell you a lot about that and so much else.

The "Portrait of America" series is a wonderful introduction for pre-teens to the 50 states and to the places and events that shaped the history of the United States. This "Indiana" installment is particularly good. The book is broken down into sections like "History", "Culture", "Economy" etc., and each section is thoughtfully written and edited. The "History" section is especially good and is very inclusive.

This book, as well as the entire "Portrait of America" series, will prove to be a valuable teaching tool to all primary school educators.

I am so happy to finally see a book about Indiana that shows there is more than corn fields and flat land. This book shows the true Indiana and everyday life. And the custom cover is the best idea I have seen for a photography book. It is your state and your picture, what could be better than that.

This book has wonderful pictures and good information on the birds I see at my bird feeder. Now I can identify them with the book in hand. I love this book.

This work provides one with information from the death rolls of the GAR's Department of Indiana. This carefully abstracted work, providing one with service data, age and death date when available, as well as GAR post and journal citation for each Union veteran listed, is a must for Civil War Researchers. The main text is appropriately complemented with six appendices including one with significant biographical data for select individuals. As veterans often retired to states other than those from which they served, one can find numerous individuals who served in Ohio, Pennsylvania and other eastern states units in this well done work.

THE INDIANA COMPANION TO TRADITIONAL CHINESE LITERATURE. Second Revised Edition. Edited by William H. Nienhauser, Charles O. Hartman, Y. W. Ma, and Stephen H. West. 1050 pp. Indiana Univ Press, 1985. ISBN: 0253329833 (hbk.)

This is a monumental reference work on the pre-1911 literature of China and was over seven years in preparation. It involved the work of almost two hundred international contributors and provides the basic background, analysis, and bibliography needed by both scholars and students to find their way around the huge corpus of Chinese literature, poetry, drama, and related commentary and scholarship.

Unfortunately 'literature' has been interpreted in the restricted sense of 'imaginative literature' (i.e., fiction, drama, poetry) and although some mention of China's philosophic literature was unavoidable, no entries exist for the major philosophers or philosophic texts. This, to some, may considerably reduce the value of the book. Major features of the book include :

Analytic survey essays of about 10,000 words each on Buddhist Literature, drama, fiction, literary criticism, poetry, prose, popular literature, rhetoric, Taoist (religious, not philosophic) literature, and women's literature.

Over 500 entries of approximately 1500 words each on famous writers, works, genres, styles, groups, movements, etc.

Each entry has a bilingual bibliography that lists editions, translations, and studies, and the major primary and secondary sources in Chinese, Japanese, English, French, and German.

Separate indexes of subjects, names, and titles.

Chinese names and titles have also been given in Chinese ideograms (sinographs) along with Wade-Giles transcriptions throughout. But one irritating defect of the book is that the pages lack headwords in the upper margins and finding a particular entry can involve a lot of riffling back and forth.

The book is a large heavy volume of full quarto size, well-printed in double columns on over one thousand pages of strong paper, stitched, and bound in full cloth for durability.

All in all it is an extremely interesting and useful 'Companion to Traditional Chinese _Imaginative_ Literature.' But what a pity the editors chose to exclude what for most people is the most interesting and significant Chinese literature of all, the philosophic literature of Ancient China.