South America Books

"Growing Up During World War II" is a wonderful compilation of personal stories from real people related in their own words. The vocabulary, thought provoking questions, and activities at the end of each chapter also make this book a useful classroom tool and I would strongly recommend it for families who are home-schooling their middle level children.

Jeanne Manning has created a fabulous resource for students, teachers, and parents to understand what it was like to live and grow-up during World War II. Her engaging style is very reader friendly and allows the voices of the people to be heard clearly. There are helpful discussion questions and relevant vocabulary words are defined.
This book should be in every classroom from 7th grade on up, because it gives a face and a voice to those who experienced World War II. Through the personal stories of young people, you gain a global understanding of life during this world conflict.

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What a wonderful book. My nephew was adopted from Guatemala and wanted to learn about his country. I gave it to him on his birthday and he loved it.
Get book for ages 8-12 years.

We bought this book to have for our 3yo who we recently adopted from Guatemala. What we found was that it was also a great book for our 8yo. She was able to learn so much about the country where her sister was coming from! It tells all types of things Guatemalan - from customs to geography to language - and it hits on many of the key learnings of "what is Guatemala" that are relevent to younger children. Now that our 3yo is home, she loves the book too because of the pictures - she certainly can relate to them. I highly recommend it to anyone adopting from Guatemala or wanting to learn the basics of what a beautiful and culturally rich country it is.

I purchased this specific travel guide in preparation for a trip to Georgetown this summer (2008). I found it to be both educational, timely (January 2008 copyright date),authentic and insightful from the author's personal narrative and perspective about this unique South American country. I also wanted to add some of the perceived "typos" mentioned by the previous reviewer are possibly not really typos for those of British or European backgrounds, I believe it is how they form and spell specific word patterns in their country, for example...realised (European) in the USA is spelled "realized" or enquiry (European) in USA is spelled "inquiry"

Callie Wilder

This is the first guidebook that treats Guyana separately as a country, and is very well researched. There is no contest between this and other guidebooks -- the level of detail and coverage of the country is unmatched when compared to the Lonely Planet's "South America on a Shoestring", the only other guidebook I know that covers Guyana well.

This book is a must have for anyone visiting or moving to Guyana. My only gripe with the book is that there is the occasional typo that can be annoying.

This book is a must-have for anyone involved with youth and/or multi-cultural projects. The crafts featured are not pipecleaner-pom pom stuff, rather they are works of art reflectling cultural history and traditions. Wonderful photographs and easy to follow instructions. Templates, clay recipes and brief, but interesting facts included for each project. Both children and adults will enjoy the activities. I've checked this book out from the public library so many times, I decided that I needed my own copy!

I purchased half a dozen craft books looking for Latin American themed projects, and this is my very favorite. There are more than 30 crafts - ranging from New World Contributions, Maya, Aztec & Inca Activities, masks, jewelery and decorations. There is something for every age group from 2-adult.

"The Healing Forest" has been selected for listing in "Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments: An Entheogen Chrestomathy." http://www.csp.org/chrestomathy

Technical, but excellent. Photos are stunning

The author is the student who excelled at the University of Toronto, where Thomas F. Homer-Dixon is a professor (and himself author of "Environment, Scarcity, and Violence"), and is now a professor at the University of Southern Florida.

Although the Central Intelligence Agency got this right in the 1970's, clearly warning U.S. policymakers that AIDS and related diseases were "the" catastrophic threat to national security and regional stability in the closing quarter of the 20th century, and although the United Nations and its various agencies have clearly understood the relationship between disease, environmental degradation, and instability--with all that instability brings in terms of crime, forced migration, and so on, the author gets five stars for doing an absolutely brilliant job of putting all of this knowledge--and his own original contributions--into a readable volume that can be understood by the most loosely-educated policymakers we have, as well as the voting public.

The author does a superb job of both crediting others (e.g. Laurie Garrett, whose stunning book "BETRAYAL OF TRUST: The Collapse of Global Public Health" we reviewed last year) while weaving his own insights into the story. ERIDs are "emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases." They matter more now because, as the author summarizes it, modern man is in a very different situation today: "individuals can travel around the world rapidly by airplane, and overpopulation and the growth of megacities have created entirely new 'disease pools' that will allow new pathogens to emerge and flourish."

The author has done a fine job of documenting how "human-induced worldwide environmental destruction" is both releasing pathogens from their hiding places in rain forests, launching new microbes that wreak havoc on aquatic life, and proliferating resistant strains of micobial terrorists we do not understand. Bacteria, in brief, are a thousand to a million times more deadly that any terrorist gang, and we would be wise to get our priorities straight as we set about pretending to govern.

As a general statement, the author appears to have done very very well as identifying intervening variables that could be analyzed, and his conclusions on what needs to be done are "President ready." He not only makes his case, he ends by calling for a massive increase in "health intelligence," and thereby demonstrates a wit lacking in most academics.

The notes are excellent, there is no bibliography, and the index is so mediocre it might as well not have been included--there is also no biography of this talented author, a grevious lack. The book should be reissued with this deficiencies being corrected.

For vexing reasons, political scientists have long neglected the role of health in understanding societal stability and regime transitions. Price-Smith begins to fill this void by offering this excellent genesis for the field of health security. Using some of the models developed by Thomas Homer-Dixon regarding nonrationality and complex causality, Price-Smith critically examines how HIV, malaria and TB, among other, could have potentially devastating consequences--for the developing and the developed world.

What makes this book all the more useful is that Price-Smith goes beyond the anecdotal or journalistic accounts that have dominated our understanding of public health's relationship to politics. He provides both rigorous statistical analysis and compelling case studies to prove his points. His writing style is clear and unassuming, a welcome approach for those without an extensive public health/biology background.

This book made me think of Julian Simon's book "The Ultimate Resource" because they both build the argument that ordinary people determine the fate of nations. That is they build the successful societies, the very few free and prosperous nations that have shown the way for others to follow. In the early days of growing economies the drive and motivation of all citizens works for the common good. Climate and natural resources are secondary to the genius of the people who will always find a way if given the chance "to make it happen." That is why Julian Simon calls them "the ultimate resource." The stories of such individuals make up the basis of this very enlightening book by Lodge and Roosevelt.

The brief biographies of these uncommon commoners shows how the brilliance of American freedom found expression in its ordinary citizens. The authors avoid the failings of the academics who seek to rewrite history to accomodate current agendas--the latter deliberately manipulate history in order to manipulate the future course of their country. Too many current books paint the pioneers of America with their anti-American brush. But in these stories, Lodge and Roosevelt strip away all that modern re-write and clearly reveal the great opportunities and upward mobility that was available to all and that served the nation so well. Each story is full of new information about the lives and times of the characters and demonstrates the past strength of our cultural and religious beliefs.

There is a growing theory that the lesson of history--the explanation why some societies Rose and others stagnated, is simply a question of whether the bulk of the ordinary people had economic freedom. Only in free and open societies can all the people strive to contribute to the nation's success. And that massive and combined effort is what brought success. This theory has been summarized and dubbed "The Radzewicz Rule" in my recent book COMMON GENIUS: Guts, Grit, and Common Sense: How Ordinary People Create Prosperous Societies and How Intellectuals Make Them Collapse That book like the biographical stories by Lodge and Roosevelt recognizes that the famous and powerful characters of history often did more harm than good, and that the overwhelming forward progress was driven by the genius of common people.

This is definitely a book to read and re-read. It is a refreshing look back to the times when we had heroes--people who acted based on strong principles rather than expediency. It is to be noted that all those selected did good things--such individuals, fiercely independent and self-reliant, built the nation. (They never looked on themselves as "victims" of asked for a hand-out.) Such people do not ever cause a nation to decline, stagnate, or Fall. Today there is a new elite that have usurped the role of ordinary people, and that may be our downfall, but in this fine volume you can relive the exploits of those who helped create our great "city on a hill." Bill Greene

I learned so many possible things that TR has done for us and his country. In my opinion, TR was a hero. He established U.S. leadership in the world as no other president had before. He was truly amazing.

Titu Cusi was the son of Manco Inca, the younger half-brother of Huascar Inca and Atahualpa, the two half-brothers who were engaged in a civil war against each other when the Spaniards landed in Peru in 1530. Atahualpa ruled the northern territories around Quito; and Huascar had been crowned Inca by the nobility of Cuzco, the empire's traditional center. Htahualpa's generals defeated and captured Huascar outside Cuzco. Soon thereafter, Atahualpa met Francisco Pizarro at Cajamarca on 16th November 1532. After a short battle, Atahualpa was taken prisoner without a single Spanish casualty.

Atahualpa ordered the assassination of Huascar and the delivery of 24 tons of gold and silver as his own ransom. Nevertheless, Atahualpa was executed by the Spaniards, and with the help of the Spaniards, his half-brother, Manco Inca (Titu Cusi's father) assumed the royal fringe, or maska paycha, reserved for the ruling Inca. A few years later Manco Inca rebelled and after almost conquering Cuzco, withdrew to Vilcabamba. After his assassination in 1545, Titu Cusi assumed command of Vilcabamba. He continued the resistance until his own death in 1571, but perhaps for diplomatic reasons, converted to Christianity and took the name of Diego de Castro.

Titu Cusi's version of these events was based on the oral traditions that were kept by his father's panaca, or kinship group. He related his account the year before his death in the language of the Incas, Quechua, to the Augustinian monk Fray Marcos García, who translated it into Spanish before it was transcribed by an unknown scribe.

The Spanish version and Catherine Julien's translation appear on facing pages in this lovely book. She loads both texts with very helpful footnotes and annotations, explaining not only specific words and phrases, but also the context of the arguments Titu Cusi was making. For example, "Titu Cusi refers to the Incas here as "natural lords" ("señores naturales"), a claim ot legitimacy in European terms. There was an argument then being forcefully made that the Incas were not natural lords, but tyrants who had gained ascendancy through conquest by force in the recent past. Spanish usurpation of sovereignty was thus justified."

Julien has included a very well written 22 page introduction which places Titu Cusi's document into its historical and cultural perspective. There is a very good bibliography; and the index is well done and very helpful. As a general reader, I found this to be a fascinating insight into Incan history. I have no expertize to be able judge the relative merits of various translations of this work.

But I enjoyed reading this book, and I took comfort from Karen Spalding's summary of the translation: "Catherine Julien's extensive research in Inca history and archeology makes her uniquely qualified to offer us this dual-language edition of Titu Cusi's version of how the Incas lost Peru to a small gang of invaders from across the sea."

Julien's autobiography appears at the Western Michigan University website.

Robert C. Ross 2008

Catherine Julien has delivered, yet again. This edition of the Inca's account of the Spanish conquest of the Andes is a wonderful addition to the literature, which can be useful to both the ethnohistorian or the lay reader. Working in either language, the character of 16th century Spanish has been preserved. Bilingual readers will take much away from Julien's careful treatment of the text and her award wining commentary on the document. Two other editions of Titu Cusi Yupangui have been published within the past year, but this is simply the best of the three!

Excellent roster - very well written narrative

Excellent roster - very well written narrative

My third graders like this book very much and it sparks a lot of discussion about America and freedom. It's about a family that must flee a Caribbean island because of political persecution. They escape in a crowded boat, where they face hunger and fear. On their trip they are even robbed and shot at. Finally, they reach a friendly shore where they are welcomed and invited to share a feast, for it is Thanksgiving Day in America. They agree there is much to be thankful for. The text is very simple and the illustrations convey the mood of fear and uncertainty. This little book may bring tears to your eyes, and will definitely make you proud to be an American.

Eve Bunting has managed to describe at a child's level the fear, anticipation and exhaustion that often accompanied many of our ancestors as they came to America. This book is a reminder of the people who both came before us and those that still come with hope to America.

It is a beautiful, meaningful and heartwarming book to share with elementary students and families either during the Thanksgiving season or while studying history and immigration.