South America Books

I'd never heard of Mari Sandoz until the other person who reviewed Slocum House sent me a copy, along with the suggestion that the tome should be on my SYLT Guide for good western fiction. After reading it twice I'm still puzzled about why Sandoz isn't more well known, even though the book was written in 1937.

Slocum House is one of the few works of fiction I've ever read that successfully portrays the nasty side of the power/wealth battle for the west. That battle and the results can be found easily enough in the nooks and crannies of actual history and autobiography. The Albert Fountain homicide in New Mexico, the various works gradually seeping out of the cracks about Mountain Meadows, Elfigo Baca, the Salt War and the Catron Gang and even the Pat Garrett homicide all portray a time in our history when county elections were a life and death matter. Until Mari Sandoz all that's mostly escaped the notice of fiction writers.

Slogum House should not be missed--it's certainly on a par with
Lonesome Dove. It's realistic and uncompromising--but don't look
for the sweep of Lonesome Dove, or the shootouts of most westerns.
The novel is about the Slogum family of Nebraska in the late 1800's
and up to the 1930's. Gulla Slogum rules the ranch--she's greedy
and unscrupulous--willing to prositute her daughters and encourage
her sons to rob and kill in order to expand her small empire. She
keeps a map, and slowly over the years is able to add new pieces
to the Slogum holdings. The sheriff and judge are kept on the
string with payoffs--both money and the sexual favors of two of
the daughters. There are no traditional shootouts--the sons
find things are much safer if they shoot someone in the back with
a rifle from a distance--why take chances?

The husband, Ruedy, is well-meaning, but weak. The two youngest
children, Libby and Ward, are decent people. There are others
over the years who come and go--such as Butch, Gulla's sadistic
brother. This is a portrayal of frontier life at it's best and
it's worst--at a time when the indian fighting is past, and when
we think that things are civilized. Reudy and Libby and Ward
persevere--they turn out to be the strongest ones in the end.

So--no cattle drives, no shootouts in front of a saloon. In fact,
almost all the scenes are at the ranch. It's a bleak, harsh, very
tough picture of rural Nebraska. The writing is excellent--there
are no parts that you find yourself hurrying through. I keep 3-4
copies--so that when I reread the book (about once a year) I can
find it easily.

This book grabs you right away, just in seeing what the subject is. It is certainly something which I have never really thought about before, discussing soft porn and how it has been portrayed. Mr. Andrews keeps it interesting and makes you want to keep turning the pages.

This is an excellent book on a strange subject -- soft core porn. I am hardly a porn afficianado but I found this book fascinating due to Andrew's careful treatment of softcore. Too often, Andrews argues, softcore porn is seen as a 'watered down' version of hard core pornography. Against this view he points out that softcore has its own distinct aesthetic. The similarity between soft core and more 'high brow' forms of art then becomes a source of anxiety to high-brow (and especially feminist) critics. As a result the book is about more than just pornography -- it is about how American culture categorizes things as 'sophisticated' or 'smut' and it demonstrates just how complex the line between these two things is and how it has been drawn (and defended) in the US today.

Now, to be honest, the book is an academic monograph -- it is not an easy-to-read pop piece. That said, Andrew's prose is easy to read by academic standards, with a wonderful economy of expression that conveys highly complex analysis in only slightly-complex prose. But what makes this book so great is not Andrew's analytical chops -- which, to be sure, he's got in spades -- but his stupendous erudition. His mastery of the genre -- the filmography lists hundreds of movies he has watched -- and his unparalleled knowledge of ths history of pornography is truly astonishing. Like an entomologist who knows every detail of 'his species' or a Shakespeare scholar who can provide paragraphs of commentary for each line in Hamlet, Andrews simply appears to have acheived that rare feat: total knowledge of an entire genre. And this gives him the ability to understand and present the genre's relevance for our understanding of all forms of art and media.

It is difficult to believe that something as... well.. _smutty_ as soft core pornography could have something to teach us about media and society in America, but that is exactly what David Andrews manages to convince us of in this tasty book on a tasteless topic.

He reads this book over and over again. Beautiful illustrations and lots of detailed information about the Brazilian rainforest.

This book is a wonderful introduction to the rain forest and poison dart frogs for children. The story takes you through the life of a strawberry poison dart frog (my daughter Jessie's favorite frog) from egg to adult. The story is excellent and the pictures are fantastic! I have been to La Selva twice so I can say that the story and pictures are realistic. A picture quiz at the end of the book will keep your eyes open for other rain forest wildlife living in the pictures of this wonderful book. I instruct environmental education programs and use this book often. Enjoy!

As a Pennsylvanian with a fondness for old theaters, I wondered if this book was a stretch, geographically speaking. To my surprise and pleasure, it not only broadened my interest in the Jersey theaters but also filled in holes on theaters I had often heard about and occasionally visited. It's obviously a labor of love, but one done by a writer with both passion and expertise concerning his topic. The sections are broken down geographically, and the pictures are more than evocative -- I go back quite often to this book -- the photos are windows to a past that was more than special to anyone old enough to remember or curious enough to want to know more.

What a thrill to read this remarkable tribute to old South Jersey movie theaters. Regardless of your own hometown, as you thumb through the pages and see the photographs and read the history of these grand old structures, you will be transported (as I was) to your own individual neighborhood childhood memories of going to the movies on Saturday afternoons and sitting in the dark, waiting for the big velvet drapes to open to that giant screen. Author Allen F. Hauss is to be commended for the time and effort spent sharing his love for the old movies theaters with all of us. I couldn't get over all the actual pictures of hundreds of South Jersey theaters - with descriptions, history, old movie posters, advertisements. Seeing the old Midway Theater in Camden, the Westmont Theater in Haddon Township, Steele Pier in Atlantic City (yea, Steel Pier) and countless others, resurrected my own personal memories of going to the Logan Theater in North Philadelphia back in the 50's - seeing James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause and so many others wonderful old movies. Thanks for the memories, Allen Hauss. You brought back on printed page the grand old forgotten structures that were left only to the shadows of our recollections.
Elaine Leaf
in Florida

This is an excellent book for young children who are just beginning to learn about the world.

I have some students from South America every year. The United States doesn't seem to cover South America very well except for concetrating on wildlife in the Rainforests. This book does very nice to highlight that there is life of the human variety in addition to all that beautiful forest.

I have visited South Beach eight times in the past three years and found it very exicting. This book has helped me understand the beginnings of South Beach and the meaning behind Art Deco. Although I fell in love with South Beach at first sight this book makes me love it even more. The book was very well written and the illustrations were very nice. Now that I have read this book I would like to purchase more on South Beach. I hope to visit South Beach again soon and this book makes a good directory.

The book "South Beach" is a great read. It covers the death and rebirth of this phat ocean front town. After reading this book it made me want to learn more about Art Deco and how Art Deco made South Beach. I recently went to South Beach and had a blast. If you can't visit South Beach, reading this book will let you know how this exciting place came about.

While this book is listed as a childs book, it is also interesting for an adult, just a good all around book on South Dakota.

If you were expecting to find Mount Rushmore looking out at you from the cover of this volume of the America the Beautiful, Second Series devoted to South Dakota you were close, but there is a shot of the Badlands instead. However on the back cover there is a shot of the Mitchell Corn Palace to help put things into perspective. I play an Internet game that tests your knowledge on everything under the sun and several times I have come across a series of questions where you have to identify if something is from South Dakota, North Dakota or neither, and I feel 50 percent more qualified to tackle that section now that I have read Donna Walsh Shepherd's book. Her first chapter, "A Blessed Land," admits that "Home on the Range" is a song about South Dakota and covers everything everybody already knows about the state, which is an implicit promise to get beyond those items and cover much more.

Three chapters are devoted to the history of South Dakota, beginning with Chapter Two, "The Olden Days," which begins with the dinosaurs, covers the first European settlers arriving after the Louisiana Purchase, and ends with gold being discovered in the Black Hills. Chapter Three, "From Sioux Wars to Statehood," starts with the Battle of the Little Big Horn, Wounded Knee, and the founding of Deadwood, and ends with the story of why it is we think South Dakota is the fortieth state admitted to the Union, but are not really sure (it was admitted at the same time as North Dakota). Chapter Four, "The Century Turns," begins with the carving of Mount Rushmore and ends with a new battle for the Black Hills.

South Dakota is presented as a "Land of Infinite Variety" in Chapter Five, and notes the state is half way between the North Pole and the equator and halfway between Asia and Europe (ergo, the middle of everywhere). Tourists will find Chapter Six, "Traveling South Dakota," especially useful as it covers what there is to see in each section of the state. The politics of South Dakota is covered in Chapter Seven, "The Shape of Government," where lists all the state symbols from state flower (American pasqueflower) and state bird (ring-necked pheasant) to state fossil (triceratops) and state drink (milk).

The state's economy is the subject of Chapter Eight, which looks at "Cattle, Corn, and Computers." This is also the chapter with the recipe for this book and this time we learn how to make Deviled Walleye Fillets. Chapter Nine, "An Alliance of Friends," explains who are the South Dakotans and covers the educational system. Finally, Chapter Ten, "Having Fun, South Dakota, Style," looks at everything from hiking trails and Black Hills jewelry to famous sons of the state such as news anchor Tom Brokaw and artist Oscar Howe.

The back of the book includes a Timeline of U.S. and South Dakota state history, shown in parallel columns, and several pages of Fast Facts with key statistics. There are also lists of books, organizations and Internet sites where young students can go To Find Out More. This book has plenty of photographs and original maps, and lots of informative sidebars on interesting people (e.g., Sacagawea and Senator Tom Daschle), places (e.g., Badlands National Park, and the Wall Drugstore), and things (e.g., a plague of locusts and why farm prices rise and fall). As promised, albeit implicitly, Shepherd certainly expands our knowledge about the state of South Dakota.

DeLorme has done it again! Stellar mapping and attention to detail make this a grand publication. Two thumbs up!

I've used Delorme atlases without any problem on my excursions through other states, so I bought the South Dakota atlas last summer before my trip last September. As usual, everything in the atlas is clear and easy to read. My trip took me all across the state of South Dakota, including travel on many back roads. Not once did I wonder where I was or feel I was lost. These atlases are remarkable for their accuracy, and they have another winner with this one. Whether you've visiting the Black Hills, heading to Pierre, or want to get to Watertown, you can use any road confidently with this atlas. Highly recommended if you want to see any part of the state off I-90 or I-29!

Spain and the Independence of Colombia differentiates the independence of Colombia as a single state versus the numerous volumes that tend to clump all Latin American independence movements as a similar experience. It traces Spain's fatalistic history in Colombia, which leads to the conclusion of independence. While Simon Bolivar and the Andean independence movemnets are mentioned, she does not get carried away and shows the importance of Colombia to the crown in Madrid.

An excellent summary of the events that led to the independence of Colombia. I felt that the author covered an area of Colombian history left as an afterthought of the Spanish liberation in 1830. It was assumed that Bolivar and Santander had little resistance after Spain neglected its colonies. This proves that wrong and reinforces the ideas of War by Sun Tzu. It was the ability of the republican troops to effectively use intelligence to defeat the royalists. In her chapter on Battle of Boyaca, she brings this to light.

This marvelous and insightful immigration history represents cultural history at its finest, with brilliant thoughts on the broader issues of homeland, citizenship and national identity alongside detailed investigations of Polish, Irish, and Eastern European settlers. If only this book was published in paperback, so it would be more accessible in the classroom!

Jacobson's book is at once a painstaking review of original texts and a highly compelling read, no matter how long ago your family arrived. A must read for professional historians and anyone interested in American Studies and Cultural History