South America Books

I enjoyed most of the book. By the end the battle scenes got somewhat repetitive. But I recommend it if you want to learn about this period.

I was a huge fan of Levy's first biography of David Crockett, and was eager to read Conquistador. Once again Levy was able to paint an amazing portrait of these historical figures, while illuminating historical events in an entertaining manner. The final siege on Tenochtitlan makes an amazing climax to this epic.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in historical non-fiction.

In a letter quoted by Buddy Levy in his magnificent Conquistador, Hernan Cortes confesses that he and his men suffer from a particular "disease of the heart": a lust for gold and power. The tale of the unhappy outcome of that disease, the destruction of one of the New World's mightiest empires in an astoundingly short time by an astoundingly small handful of adventurers, is the most apparent storyline in Conquistador. Levy tells it with eloquence and accuracy.

But there's another storyline in the book that I find just as fascinating. The disease of the heart which afflicted Cortes and his men also troubled Montezuma, for the Aztec Empire, despite its achievements in science and art, was also a bloodthirsty machine that subjugated native peoples, sacrified tens of thousands to pitiless gods, and created caste systems in which the many were ground under the feet of the few. What Levy gives us, then, is a double portrait of two invalids suffering from similar illnesses. One, a European captain with fewer than 500 men, the other a divine emperor with life-or-death power over 15 million people. In the end, both of them died from their diseases, Montezuma and his empire literally, Cortes morally and (despite his sporadic religious zealotry) spiritually. Curiously, neither of them seemed to have quite the necessary stamina to survive their illness.

In telling the story of the clash between these two men, Levy explores the tactics by which Cortes managed to defeat Montezuma: a combination of bluster, good luck, superior technology, alliances with disgruntled indigenous peoples, and hard fighting. His description of La Noche Triste, the night in which Cortes and his men were forced out of the royal city of Tenochtitlan by rallying Aztecs and nearly destroyed, is surpassed only by his account of the 2-month siege that retook and destroyed the city. (Cortes, for example, dug a one-mile canal to launch battle ships in the lake surrounding Tenochtitlan. Over 200,000 Aztecs, including Montezuma, perished in the resulting fight, which Levy describes with the gusto of Homer's account of the fall of Troy.) Afterwards, Cortes built his palace on the ruins of Montezuma's.

The relationship between Montezuma and Cortes has always been a strange one, with both men appearing both attracted and repulsed by the other. Levy suggests that part of the ambivalence may've been because Montezuma, overpowered by the splendor of the invaders, fell victim to the Stockholm Syndrome (a sense of loyalty to one's oppressors). It's a fascinating suggestion.

All in all, a splendid book that combines historical narrative with much insight about how diseases of the heart can bring down both individuals and empires. Something to think about.

i couldn't put this book down. the incredible deceit and politics that went on and still continues today. you could really see the humanity in both Cortes and Montezuma. very well-researched. now i want to go to mexico city and dig deep in its streets and sewers to find all that lost gold!!!!

Corner of the Dead is an engrossing read. Artfully constructed and referencing the Latin American literature in its poetic language, the novel brings the reader face to face with the inhumanity faced by Chilean Andean villages during the time of the Shining Path. With remarkable clarity the narrative voice captures the shaking terror of both the witnessing and later, in New York, in the remembering. The evocative symbolism in the book stikes with spare and direct emotive blows. Corner of the Dead is a haunting triumph of a novel, I recommend it.

The Corner of the Dead is a deeply intense and emotional read. From the start, the story grabs you and won't let go. You feel the pain and sorrow throughout the novel and brings you right into this dark world. You will not put this book down and then will read it again to make sure you got all of the details. Very good read.

A beautifully written book. A portrait of a woman's pain. Through her eyes, her camera, and her memory, sometimes through gauze and other times without a filter, we visit the sources of Lisette's pain and the effect on her and those around her. She is at the same time resilient and fragile.

I loved this book, but I found being an observer sometimes frustrating. I wanted to know the characters - what they were thinking, where they came from - what they survived - their childhoods, their customs, their loves, their stories. In particular, I wondered about Enrique's wife, Amparo.

Lurie's writing is moving and heartfelt. Her story is one of survival - one woman's struggle to process life, death and love. Her writing on the disturbing subject of the disregard for human life encourages you to think about why people do what they do. It's a book that stays with you even when you have finished it. A must read!

This book is wonderful...Alberto Villoldo expresses himself so clear and simple. Lots to learn from all of his books.

As with his other books, I'm enjoying this creative dreaming book by Alberto. I know that he understands so much more about life and death than I do and I continuously strive to learn from him. I'm only about half through the book and have completed the exercises he suggests along the way. One has to believe in the divine and the light energy field around and through the body in order to understand and participate in the creation Alberto describes. Hopefully, more and more of us will begin to do this. It has the power to change the world as we know it!

A wonderful book that teaches us how to rethink and become whole in mind, body, soul & spirit. It is very well written and gives exercises that causes your brain to lay the neural pathways for you to achieve success in your life. It sets us free from old thought patterns that play out drama in our lives. This book helps teach us to recreate our life and our world, but we have to be willing to do the work. I also suggest Dr. Villoldo's book Shaman,Healer,Sage- how to heal yourself with energy medicine of the America's. I highly respect this man's body of work.

S.A./ Arkansas

Truly the most inspirational and informative book that I have ever read. It is full of knowledge that is useful to you every day of your life, changing your idea of what life is forever.

This book is a very comrehensive look at the culture & people of Ecuador. It is written like a travel guide giving an inside look into different locations & the people living there. This book would an enjoyable read even for people who are not planning on traveling to Ecuador.

As all Culture Shock books, this too is a very good one in unerstanding the soul of a country.

My son is in Ecuador as an exchange student for a year, and I found the book interesting. It gives you a sense of the culture and what to expect if you go to live there.

If you're planning on going to Ecuador this is the book for you. The author writes in a very lively way to keep you interested all the way to the end. Having lived there for over 20 years he has authoritatve views and accurate histories to really get you prepared to interact with the people of Ecuador. The author also has a helpful list of do's and don'ts to help keep you out of trouble. Check it out.

Very nice reading all stories very thought provoking and all have a good message. Something I will enjoy reading to my grandchildren.

READ ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING BY THIS MAN YOU CAN GET YOUR HANDS ON....HIS ESSAYS AND STORIES IN THIS COLLECTION ARE WELL WRITTEN AND EXCEPTIONALLY PROFOUND...THE ANSWERS TO A HARMONIOUS AND BALANCED LIFE LIE IN THESE PAGES....COME FIND THEM.

Joseph Marshall III's the Dance House: Stories from Rosebud relates knowledgeable insight from the Sicangu Lakota Sioux's point of view, using everyday incidents as well as historical events. A Lakota Sioux historian who was raised on the Rosebud reservation, the author's simple yet harmonious language creates a memorable collection of eight short stories and five essays that present a truthful representation of Native Americans. Using the underlying theme that heritage is important to one's identity. Marshall is adamant in erasing the white man's barbaric, ignorant image of the Indian.

In the title story, after the tribe's dance house was ordered burned by the United States Government which seized the Black Hills land where the house stood, Jacob Little Thunder and others, outwitting the white "boss farmer" and defying the Dawes Act, build a house of happiness where the people of Grass Valley could come together to remember "the old days and traditional way."

Gus Pretty Crow, through his unwavering honesty, brought the demise of the haughty sheriff in "1965 Continental." One rainy night a stranger appears at Gus' door requesting mechanical help. When Gus recommends that the man wait until the next morning and call the local wrecker "that runs, sometimes," the stranger propositions him: "Sell me your [1950] truck and I'll give you that 1965 Lincoln Continental." After Gus explains that an Indian owning a new luxury vehicle would create problems for him, the stranger promises that just a phone call to him would fix any problem that would occur. Reluctantly Gus agrees to the transaction and soon after the harassment by the local sheriff begins.

Jon Marichale educates his grandfather during a reminiscent outing about the petrifaction process of a stone turtle the grandfather had discovered years before.

The Dance House is necessary reading for anyone who is interested in the truth about Native American culture, or simply enjoys gifted storytelling.

Lakota Sioux historian and novelist Marshall proves himself a triple threat with these powerful essays and short stories. As the subtitle suggests, the nine pieces collected here all deal with life on the author's home reservation of Rosebud, SD, and it is a credit to Marshall's ability as a storyteller that the fictional stories are nearly indistinguishable from the factual essays. Subject to changes brought in by Euro-American culture that surrounds it, Marshall's Rosebud is nevertheless a timeless place where the Sioux insist on maintaining their identity. Readers will be grateful to Marshall for building a dance house of the mind, one that draws on autobiography, nature writing, legend and the day-to-day adventures and misadventures of his own family and neighbors.

I must admit that in my mind the myths around Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid were all tied up with the 1969 movie starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. I had a vague idea that the characters were based on real people, but I wasn't very curious about them. Then I ran across this book. I meant to give it a desultory glance, but I got hooked by the charming George Leroy Parker aka Butch Cassidy and his hothead partner, Harry Longabaugh aka the Sundance Kid. I found myself peering at the photographs and thinking, "They were real!" I was particularly entranced with the mysterious Etta Place (if that was actually her name). This is a very entertaining account of obsessive sleuthing. The author and her husband even went to Bolivia and witnessed the digging up of remains of an outlaw purported to be Sundance. Ms. Meadows reaches no definite conclusions, and that's just fine with me. Perhaps if we knew exactly what happened to them, they wouldn't be so intriguing.

Meadows, an exceptionally skillful writer, takes you along on a fascinating adventure to uncover the remains of two of the old west's most colorful outlaws. You feel you are right there at the side of the author and her husband every step of the way as they try to solve the mystery of the famous outlaw pair's last days. It's a trip well worth the taking. Highly recommended.

Digging Up Butch and Sundance is as engrossing as any fictional detective story, thanks to Anne Meadows' exceptional writing style and dogged pursuit of the facts. She brings to life the men behind the myth, and deals with a wealth of confusing and conflicting accounts with clarity and intelligence, spicing her story with numerous fascinating details about her and her husband's countless trips to South America in search of the truth. While her final answers may not have solved the mystery of the outlaws' fate with 100% certainty, she has done more than anyone else to come to a solution, which is certain to satisfy all but the most of skeptical of critics. May be the most complete (and accurate) book about their final days, and is likely to remain so. Highly recommended.

We loved the Butch and Sundance we saw on the screen. Their humor, looks and everything else. But sadly, we gained not quite enough information on the two except their robbing career, loves and their escape to Bolivia.(Ha!)
So, for those of you who want to know more about the two outlaws, I strongly suggest Anne Meadows book, DIGGING UP BUTCH AND SUNDANCE.

I am not quite done with the book yet. It's a big read. But from what I have read so far, I have learned a lot about the two. Anne Meadows takes us to a home and other places where Cassidy and the Kid were said to have stayed and visited. She gives us detailed information about their lives, robberies and even room to doubt about their final fight. There has been speculation about whether or not they died in the last battle in Bolivia and whether that battle even occured. I haven't reached that far in the book yet, but I like it so far and encourage anyone who is interested to read DIGGING UP BUTCH AND SUNDANCE.
Anne Meadows did an excellent job in writing this book. Don't pass it up!

Hodagneu-Sotelo's poignant look at the lives of Latina immigrants in Domestica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence, can be a source of enlightenment as well as a sort of "how-to" manual for any employer or employee in the nanny/housekeeper and house cleaning fields. The author argues that the women in these types of work continually battle for basic employee rights: adequate pay and set hours free from discrimination, harassment, and substandard working conditions. She addresses issues of long hours, unreasonable demands, alienation, and the reasons that the workers stay in these situations; fear of retaliation from employers and deportation.
Although a bit verbose, this book is packed with valuable information and resources that the reader is sure to use or be able to pass along to someone else. It is a meritable attempt at expressing the angst felt by Latina immigrants and the unresponsive attitude of the employer. It does tend to come across as a bit one-sided, due partly because not many employers or employees were willing to participate in her research efforts, but is still a great and easy read.

In Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo's Doméstica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadow of Affluence, readers explore, along with the researcher, an oft overlooked element of domestic labour in America. In examining this particular manifestation between the haves and have little, Hondagneu-Sotelo has provided a "scholarly" treatment where Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed fell short. This is by no means an indictment of Ehrenreich's work, quite the contrary. Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed is approachable by the many levels of readers that seek to understand the phenomenon of the working poor and their interaction with affluent Americans (here, I speak specifically of Ehrenreich's chapter two titled "Scrubbing in Maine"). However, in Doméstica, Hondagneu-Sotelo has opted to focus her research on immigrant domestic workers, specifically Mexican and Central American women in Los Angeles. In so doing, her research provides insight into the minds and worlds of both parties who engage in what can easily be termed a "love hate" relationship; one where, out of necessity, both the employer and employees are in need of one another. In addition, Doméstica serves to highlight some of the struggles of members of America's largest "minority" population (be they documented or otherwise). While Hondagneu-Sotelo relegates her analysis and interviews to women in the Los Angeles area, this reviewer is of the opinion that her research may well be duplicated in other cities with similar populations and yield like outcomes.

Reading this work, I began pondering the future of work and workers and four questions came to mind: (1) As America becomes more diverse, will the question of immigrants holding less than desirable positions along the socio-economic margins become of increasing interest to researchers and politicians such that worker-friendly policies emerge? (2) If so, what forms will later policy manifestations assume? (3) What will such a shift mean for the future of economic relations between these two disparate groups? (4) Also, will America continue to marginalize employees that hold the critical job of caring for our young such that we ensure a future of troubled youth due to attachments to caregivers and the familial realities of economic and social stratification? History has shown if we ignore questions not unlike these, problems are sure to result.

Historically, "love labor" had been performed, initially, by captive African American women and later those under strict laws (Jim Crow) of mobility, both physical and social. With the relative ascension of African Americans into the socio-economic sphere of marginal acceptance in America, certain forms of work are left to the cheaper, and sometimes unpaid, labor force of immigrant women. Increasingly, such workers are admitted into affluent homes in America through informal networks. For this brief iteration, we consider Hondagneu-Sotelo's Part Two titled "Finding Hard Work Isn't Easy." Here, Hondagneu-Sotelo discusses the other worldly process where women in need of domestic workers and the women in need of domestic work come in contact with one another.

This "whole other world" is highlighted when Hondagneu-Sotelo writes, "most prospective employers looking for paid domestic workers in Los Angeles bypass employment agencies, newspaper ads, or other formal job announcements, which they find expensive, slow, and unreliable. Instead the majority rely on their co-workers, neighbors, friends, and relatives when they seek domestic help" (63). This in itself is telling in that it pulls from Granovetter's theory of the strength of weak ties as mentioned in Deirdre Royster's Race and the Invisible Hand. Applied to Hondagneu-Sotelo's work, there exist, in the domestic worker community, ties that allow for a potential employer in need of workers to gain access to a network of domestic workers with the ability to refer friends and/or family members to employers in need of domestic assistance. Additionally, such a process not only allows for a socially and economically unequal relationship to ensue and continue for years in some cases, it also provides the foundation for further entrenchment of unequal employee and employer relations rooted in economic exploitation.

Whereas many of these workers are not earning a living wage, some employers exercise great pains not to flaunt their affluence. In one telling moment, Hondagneu-Sotelo writes, "some employers try to snip off the price tags on new clothing and home furnishings before the Latina domestic workers read them because they fear the women will compare the prices of those items with their wages - which they invariably do. While some employers often feel guilty about 'having so much' around someone who 'has so little,' the women who do the work resent not their affluence but the job arrangements, which generally afford the workers little in the way of respect and living wages" (xi-xii). In this instance, we witness the uneasy but, to the employer, necessary relationship between the affluent employer and the unaffluent worker. Additionally, we note how workers, through Hondagneu-Sotelo's in-depth interviews, indicate that they would rather that requests come not "as a symbol of servitude and a humiliating affront" to one's dignity, but that their work is seen for what it is, essential to the functioning of the household in which they are employed (145).

In producing a work with statistical data on domestic labor in Los Angeles, coupled with the voices of women on both sides of the issue, Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo has done an admirable job of broaching the subject of the uneasy relationship between affluent women who require domestic assistance and unaffluent immigrant employees that work and, in some cases, live among them. Of the many good points in this work, her in-depth interviews with employees and employers are most revealing. Not unlike the work of Ehrenreich in Nickel and Dimed and Katherine S. Newman in No Shame in My Game, Hondagneu-Sotelo allows readers to, as Newman suggested, gain a clearer understanding of the interconnections between people and networks that a purely quantitative work would not permit. That being said, this reviewer applauds Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo and her effort to provide a clearer understanding of the women we see on train platforms and in bus terminals that dot American cities and suburbs of affluence.

First let me begin by saying that this is an interesting read. You basically learn about domestic workers (live in nannies, home cleaners). The author gives you alot of information, in fact I would say that she gives you a plethora of information. As such it took me over a month to finish this book, and the fact.

Basically, the two problems I have with this book are 1. The author's monolithically leftist viewpoint (which seems to be common in books like this), 2. The hard time she has getting to the point. In particular comments like "Some feminist theorists, especially those influenced by Marxist thought, have used the term "social reproduction" or "reproductive labor"..." (Page 23) or "The United States has a long history of incorporating people of color through coercive systems of labor...slavery and contract labor systems...today, international labor migration and the job characteristics of paid domestic work" (Page 51)

Again the biggest problem I have with this book/writer is the use of a marxist/conflict theory filter in regards to analyzing domestic worker (as in us [domestic workers and their allies] vs them [middle class homeowners who employ domestic workers]). When if you actually take a moment, breath and impartially assess the facts the relationship is more of a symbiotic/functionalist/"we need each other" type deal in which two autonomous human beings are simply trying to work out a mutually beneficial arrangement.

Now what I do like... There is some great information presented in this book. 1. Domestic workers are entitled to minimum wage like normal employees and can sue for backwages. 2 Live-in housekeeper is a common first job of immigrants to the United States and as such is very important to economic integration of immigrants (legal and illegal alike).

Basically, you learn all about domestic work in all it's most interesting facets. An example being spoiled children who are hell for their domestic workers, and the situation is compounded because consciquences for bad behavior are underminded by the parents. Or usage of prozac and ritalin by parents for behavior modification of children and the avoidance of direct confrontation between domestic workers and their employees and many other interesting facts concerning the profession.

Because of how interesting this book is I'm giving it 4/5 stars (although I'm tempted to give it 3/5 because of the marxist rhetoric).

Dr. Hondagneu-Sotelo's beautifully written work takes the reader into the world of Latina nannies and housekeepers, showcasing the women's own voices and perspectives while maintaining an academic's sharp-eyed analysis. She chronicles the difficulties of domestic workers while still acknowledging their ability to impact their own work environments. One of the strengths of Hondagneu-Sotelo's book is the analysis of class inequality, particularly the ways that employers awkwardly handle their own discomfort with their priviledge. Her conclusions, rather than knee-jerk dismissals of domestic labor, suggest ways that domestic employment can be viewed as the job it is. The author's thoughts on her own position to her research subject in the preface is worth the price of the book. This book recently won five awards from different sociological organizations, and deservedly so.

An excellent publication of this Argentine Gaucho classic. The compelling story of the legendary quintessential Argentine gaucho, Don Segundo Sombra.

This is one of the greatest books in Argentine literature. I can remember reading it at the age of sixteen and the impression it made on me. It was as it was telling my own life and childhood in the countryside with the good men that I knew there. And how they all dissapeared facing a modern and much different world giving the word gaucho a more "typical" and superficial meaning. Very, very strange, it made on me the same effect than, lately and older, Islands in the Stream by Hemingway. I strongly recommend it, though my comment is very personal. (sorry about my awful English)

I am surprised by how few people know of this book. An excellent novel protraying the master/disciple relationship and questions of ones destiny. It is a pleasure to read.

Don Segundo Sombra is a classic that deserves to be re-issued. Elegantly written with superb images, the novel despicts not only the adventurous life of the gaucho but also the journey toward self-discovery.

For 300 years the Atlantic Slave Trade brought 12 million people from Africa to the New World. But in spite of the huge numbers of people who made the trip there have been only a handful of first-person accounts left by those who made that horrible trip. Most of the slaves lived and died without having a chance to tell their story. It was not until the advent of the Civil Rights Movement that much needed attention was finally given to one of the saddest chapters in American history.
That makes Dreams of Africa in Alabama, The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America such a welcome addition to the field of African-American and Southern history. In Dreams, Dr. Sylviane Diouf, who is the curator at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York, tells the story of the last Africans brought to the United States on the ship Clotilda.The slave trade was outlawed in 1807, but that did not stop slave traders from bringing slaves into the United States. In 1860, the year before the outbreak of the Civil War, Timothy Meaher, a wealthy Mobile businessman from Maine, bet a group of friends that he could bring a shipful of Africans right into Mobile Bay "under the officers noses." He won the bet.
The 110 people that Meaher brought from the kingdom of Dahomey on the west coast of Africa were named Oluale, Pollee Allen, Zuma, Ossa Keeby, and Cudjo Lewis, who would be the last of the shipmates to die in 1935. Slaves for only five years before they won their freedom at the end of the war, they failed in their quest to get back home and instead carved out a life for themselves in their own town outside of Mobile, Africa Town.
Forgotten for years, their story is brought to life by Svlviane Diouf, who thanks to her outstanding research and writing skills brings to life the dreadful trip during the Middle Passage,and then the dehumanzing, backbreaking life of a slave in Alabama during the Civil War. Even years later, the shipmates would break down when they tried to talk about the trip on the Clotilda. Looked down upon by whites and other blacks as "savage Africans," a bias that would haunt them and their families into the 20th century, they lived through slavery, war,and Jim Crow and created the only town of its kind in the United States, a town founded and lived in by people who had been brought to this country as slaves from Africa.
For 50 years, memebers of the shipmates' families and others have worked to preserve the history of Africatown and the story of the men and women who founded it. There is still much that is needed to be done to save that legacy before it is too late. Hopefully Dr. Diouf book will help to raise awareness about this important and little known chapter from American history.

This book is wonderful, excellent, and educational and knowledge filled, without being an academic bore. I don't even know where to start. I will say buy your hardback copy now. This author deserves financial support through the purchase of this book. The story of the Clotilda Africans should be known. I beg y'all to please read this book, and if you love it encourage others to read it. This is one of a few first hands accounts of Africans telling their stories by an unbiased storyteller. Ms. Diouf's writing skills make this an easy read.

Dreams tell us about the lives and the journey of 110 Africans who were brought from Dahomey, known today as Benin in West Africa. Benin is situated between Nigeria and Togo. A schooner, by the name of Clotilda, was built and dispatched from Mobile Bay Alabama to the Kingdom, by Timothy Meaher, wealthy businessman in Mobile. In a drunken stupor he bragged to his associates that he could bring Africans into the Mobile without detection from authorities. Coincidentally, an advertisement appeared in the Mobile Press Register that the King of Dahomey was doing a brisk sale in Africans. So it was an open secret that Africans could still be brought into the country.

Timothy decided to commission the building of the Clotilda for the journey to Dahomey, even though the transportation of Africans was abolished in 1808. The Clotida was an efficient, light and swift boat. It would criss cross the Atlantic in record time.

The Africans were primarily spoils of warfare and the raids of villages other ethnic Africans. They came from various ethnic groups and cultures. However, the core group, were Yorubas. The Yorubas are a large ethnic groups, with many subgroups who live in what is now Benin and southwest Nigeria. They had names like "Kossola,, Abache, Abile, Omolabi, Kupollee, Kehounco, and Arzuma."

The Yorubas are generally an urban people. They live in towns and city-states. However, they all have home villages that their people hail. These Africans were brought to South America and the Caribbean islands in very large number. However, out of the 480,000 or so Africans brought to the US, less than 5% came from this group. Whereas the people out of the Bight of Biafra(Ibos and Ibibio) comprise about 24% of African population brought to the US, which is pretty much in dead competition as far as numbers to the BaKongo and Angolans. So this group is quite unique.

Ms. Slyviane tells us their story primarily through the eyes of the last survivor of the Clotilda Africans, Cudjo Lewis aka Kossola, a Yoruba. He survived all of his children, wife, and shipmates.

This is a fascinating story of African American history, American history, and African history. Cudjo and his shipmates had dreamed and planned to get back to their homeland, but it never happened.

What makes this book so fascinating is that we actually know the slaver, the captain, the ship, and where they came from. Not only that, about 30 of the Africans lived on Meaher's land. So there is first hand information and resources from the slavers, the Africans, and their descendents.

What is more fascinating to me is I am a native Mobilian. I grew up and was schooled there from kinder garden to college. Yet I don't recall ever hearing anything about the Clotilda until years later after I left home. Again, I am a Mobilian. Y'all talkin' about the Miss Education of the Negro. I am raise my hands without shame. I was one.

Again, I am begging folks to read this book, especially my folks(AAs) and other folks of Central and West African descent, i.e. Angola, Kongo(Zaire), Senegambia, Guinea, Nigeria, Ghana, Benin, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leon, etc. Knowledge of self and ones history is the ultimate self-love. Y'all want regret it.

I also encourage others who are genuinely interested in a truthful and accurate telling of history to read this wonderful book.

I cannot recommend this book any more feverishly. It is incredibly well researched and written. The author lays down the historical facts in a clear manner and then leaves the characters to entice you into their lives and speak to you. The stories are never sensationalized, if anything, it is this lack of dramatization that enables the stories to unfold naturally.

The book clearly shows how within a relatively short space of time certain aspects of a culture may vanish, but other aspects which form the core of a community's make-up are improvised regardless of the circumstances and continued down the line (the communal spirit of the Africans, reverence to authority, conflict resolution etc). Cudjo's life was the one delved into in the greatest detail and it evolved to be as remarkable as it was melancholic.

After the last of the African deportees dies, I can only imagine the loneliness that would have haunted him - being alone in America, a land that he had lived in for three quarters of his life, but one that was still alien to him, one where no other local born Africans were in his immediate vicinity would surely have quelled his tenacious will and defiant spirit. For him to have lived the rest of his years, not being able to converse in his native tongue or to express his innermost feelings in a manner capable of being immediately understood by his neighbors would surely have been unbearably painful. There is an African proverb that states that "you know who a person really is by the language they cry in". When all he had ever known was gone and he lamented for them in his native tongue, I wonder, did the people around him understand the depth of his despair? After all his personal losses and tragedies in America, he finally relents of his desire to go back to Africa and surmises that he was indeed alone on earth - his family in America was no more and he figured that his family in Africa would also be no more - an unbearable set of circumstances to accept. The author should be commended for unearthing and bringing to life such a great story, but even more importantly, for doing so in as lucid a manner as is possible. My only question is how on earth do we let a story as remarkable as this just dawdle with no attempt to publicise it more. It would be great if we could have a children's book on the story.
A trip to AficaTown in Alabama is in the offing for my family.

Dreams of Africa in Alabama is a beautifully written and meticulous book. It's evident that Ms. Diouf spent a considerable amount of time and detail with her research. The author describes the Alabama slave trade and the events that lead to the maiden voyage of the modified schooner, Clotilda. She devotes two chapters to the lives of the "shipmates" - one prior to their capture and the other chronicling their imprisonment in the barracoons (slave pens) and their subsequent Middle Passage voyage. The remaining chapters recount the lives of the deported Africans during their enslavement and post emancipation.

In 1808 the United States abolished the international slave trade. In order to circumvent the law, many Southerners modified existing ships to camouflage their true intent and evade naval officials. The Clotilda was one such ship. Seeking to make a profit on the sale of Africans, the Meaher brothers and their associates went about the business of arranging a slaving run. Many of the captured Africans were placed into slavery as a result of lost tribal wars and/or suspect alliances between African Kings and European and American merchants.

When the humiliation and brutality of slavery was over, the shipmates endured Jim Crow, disenfranchisement and other forms of maltreatment. In spite of those obstacles, the Africans purchased land just outside of Mobile, Alabama, and became a self-sufficient community with a bank, farms, schools and churches. The shipmates limited their interaction with non-African people. Other than their contact with Americans and African Americans in the workplace, the Africans made little effort to interact anyone who wasn't from the continent in their personal lives. Intermarriages between Africans and African Americans occurred in small numbers. There were attempts to return to their families and homes in Africa; run-ins with the law; and a desire to dispel the rumors of their savagery and cannibalism.

This book is a sobering and painful account of some of the atrocities Africans endured. Ms. Diouf interviewed the descendants of the Mobile, Alabama slaves, and poured over mountains of archives in libraries and private collections to give the reader an up close and personal view of the lives of the shipmates of the Clotilda. There are many more stories and details to be discovered when you read Dreams of Africa in Alabama.

I chose this book for my trip to Ecuador because it included non-birds, and I didn't know of a book that covered everything but birds, nor did I want to bring two separate guides. This book did include nearly all the birds, monkeys and other animals I saw in 25 days in several different ecosystems, though it could have been stronger in the area of frogs and invertebrates (spiders, ants, butterflies, snails...) and the segregation of Galapagos species into their own section was somewhat inaccurate, as several of them can also be seen on Isla de la Plata. (The jungle lodge I visited had several copies of this book on their shelves for visitor use, which I think can be considered an endorsement.) I came home perfectly satisfied with it, even though we had to rely on our naturalists for a few identifications.

I'll admit to having cut out most of the text section and left it at home to save on weight, taking along only the color plates and brief haitat descriptions. Fortunately, the color pages do include enough region and habitat information on each entry to help distinguish similar species. Now that I'm home, I'll put it back together and enjoy reading the text as a way of softening the blow of leaving Ecuador. I can't wait to go back and explore more, and I didn't even try to cover the Galapagos!

This book was one used by my guide during a recent trip to the Ecuadorian
Selva. I purchased it on my return home and transfered my field notes to the pages with the appropriate birds and animals I had the pleasure to see. I have enjoyed reading the addition info the book provides and it will help preserve my experience for myself and others.

A layman needs a good guide when on tour of a new territory, whether that be a museum, a literary genre, or a country's heritage. In David Pearson's and Les Beletsky's 485 page ECUADOR and its GALAPAGOS ISLANDS, they present a book that is as good a guide as a layman could hope for, not just for exploring Ecuador or its Galapagos Islands, but for getting to know much of the fauna of Amazonian Latin America. The text is professionally written, yet down to earth and not infrequently humorous. The famous entomologist J. Henri Fabre once wrote, "Others again have reproached me with my style, which has not the solemnity, nay, better, the dryness of the schools. They fear lest a page that is read without fatigue should not always be the expression of the truth. Were I to take their word for it, we are profound only on condition of being obscure." This approach to scientific writing - being informative without being pedantic - allows writers like Pearson and Beletsky to fill the reader's heart with wonder while still often bringing a smile to his/her face.

With Ecuador being one of the most biologically diverse countries on earth, it is impossible to create a book that is both comprehensive and brief. The authors have gone for middle ground, covering the portion of Ecuadorian wildlife that is of interest and/or likely to be spotted by the ecotraveller to Ecuador. There are 96 color plates (with 5-6 animals illustrated on each one), several pages of color photographs, an excellent chapter - with maps - of Ecuador's National Parks and Bioreserves, a section on Ecuador's geography and habitats (e.g., Lowland Wet Forest, Mangrove and Coastal Vegetation) along with drawings illustrating several major plants in these regions, and 200 pages of animal descriptions under the headings 'Amphibians', 'Reptiles', 'Birds', 'Mammals', 'Insects & Other Arthropods', and 'Galapagos Wildlife'.

As an Ecuadorian resident, I have found this guide to be an excellent aid to identifying and understanding the natural history of the country. The book was both informative and fun to read, and I can highly recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about this wonderful area of the world.

I have just returned from those Enchanted Isles and found Beletsky's guide omnipresent, dog-eared and tightly clutched in the sea-salted hands of many a visitor. I am surprised that the Sea Lions and Blue Footed Boobies did not have their own copies!

This guide is a truly indispensible accessory for those fortunate enough to have visited those Islands of wonder and enchantment. It is also a great whetter of one's appetite! Other books have their strengths, but when push comes to shove, or in this case just going around..., one wants a thorough compliment to one's naturalist (to make all those notations when one gets back home, of course) and also a look into what is to come. Accurate and beautifully illustrated.