Races Books

This account was writt6en in 1994 and covers the story of the murder of Medgar Evers up to the time when Byron de la Beckwith was convicted. The author makes the trial seem like a slam dunk so far as the law was concerned, but a perusal of the Mississippi Supreme Coutt opinions show that there were real legal problems in bringing him to trial so long after the murder. The citation for the case is 707 So. 2nd 547. The conviction was affirmed by a four to 2 vote with 3 justices not participating. Nossiter tells the story from a number of angles and it is simply absorbing reading. And since the book ends with justice triumphant it is a most satisfying book, showing that some things do eventually turn out right.

I concur with the previous reviewer. Mr. Nossiter has produced a well-researched and fascinating chronicle of the case of Medgar Evers, including a detailed and chilling portrait of his assassin. Nossiter also effectively re-creates the eerie atmosphere of early 1960's Mississippi, where the Klan, the White Citizens' Council, and the Sovereignty Commission flourished, and where a man like Beckwith would become a sort of folk hero to his fellow racists. However, it is also a story of dogged determination and the quest for justice, as exemplified by Myrlie Evers and Bobby DeLaughter, whose efforts culminated in the long-overdue conviction of Beckwith. It is a story of tragedy and triumph, skillfully crafted by a talented and deeply insightful writer. Well done, Mr. Nossiter!

First, my reviewer credentials for this book. I was born in MS and lived there through the 60's. If one wants to get a real understanding of the expereience of Mississppi in the that time,
read Nossiter's book. It covers far more than just the Beckwith trial, though that part of the book in and of itself makes for a fascinating read. This is an outstanding book on so many levels.
This was truly one of those books that I sort of hoped would just never end.

Forget the Movie. This is the book to read about the assisination of Medgar Evers and the subsequent retrial some 30 years later of the killer.

The author provides a moving and engrossing story as well as sharp analysis of the social conditions and personalities involved.

I have always enjoyed Samuel Abt's articles on cycling in the International Herald-Tribune, so figuring out that I would enjoy his collection of articles in Off to the Races didn't require a great leap of faith. Still, I'm not sure I could have guessed that I'd enjoy it quite as much as I did.

Mr. Abt's keen eye and feel for words rarely produce spectacular results but they almost always capture the heart of the subject they are examining. What I didn't expect was the way reading all of these essays as a collection would work together to create a larger picture, the way that some talented designers can take a collection of paintings or magazine covers and organize them in such a way that they create a unique portrait when viewed from an appropriate distance.

The portrait this collection produces spans a 25-year period that starts with the tail end of the career of Eddy Merckx, cycling's Babe Ruth (if I can be permitted a baseball analogy...), and ending well into the era of its latest star, Lance Armstrong, the sport's Hank Aaron (...or maybe two of them). In between, all of the giants of the sport -- Greg LeMond, Miguel Indurain, Francesco Moser, Sean Kelly, Claudio Ciapucci, Laurent Fignon, Bernard Hinault, Chris Boardman, Jan Ullrich, Mario Cipollini, and the recently deceased Marco Pantani -- are presented as Mr. Abt saw them at the time, and not with the sometimes distorting benefit of hindsight. Add to that a host of profiles of other would-be champions, flash-in-the-pan talents, and colorful racers and you have a collection of articles that belongs on any cycling fan's bookshelf.

The photography, unfortunately, is not what it could be considering the talent of photojournalist Graham Watson and the photogenic nature of the sport. Unless Mr. Watson inexplicably withheld the crème of his personal collection, I can only blame this on some nameless editor who ran great photos too small, and who skipped what must have been some extraordinary shots from Mr. Watson's portfolio in lieu of some rather ordinary alternatives. But the writing is the real reason to buy Off to the Races, so don't let the unexceptional choice of photos cause you to miss this highly enjoyable volume.

I knew before I opened this book that I would like it as it is nothing more than a collection of many of his coverage articles over the years with the International Herald Tribune. I appreciate his candidness in sharing his early feelings on Bicycle Racing, and how his wife is responsible for getting him involved. That was a nudge that has given me years of pleasure reading his articles when they make it into The New York Times. The stories in this book were all new to me, and they further demonstrate the access to the riders that Abt has, and his ability to tell a cycling story that anyone could love.

This is a very interesting book about professional road cyclists in and around major races. It captures rising stars, athletes in their prime, and fading champions equally well. Venues and situations are clearly portrayed, and the short entries make the book a pleasure to read over a period of a couple of weeks (if you're on an indoor trainer or just plain busy, or both!). An inspiring read.

Not only are the stories in this book excellent, but I appreciated the author's introduction also, explaining the breakdown in three sections and the reasoning behind it. I was hooked immediately, and this author has a relationship with the riders that other journalists simply do not have, and therefore they cannot touch the vibrancy of the stories. Simply outstanding book.

An absolutely stunning book, detailing the history of this awe-inspiring race from its inception to date.

Clear production and well journalised personal stories provide a book you can pick up and browse through again and again

Greg Lemond famously said about cycling:" It doesn't get any easier. You just get faster." And for a sport that values the ability to suffer, the least easy of all races is Paris-Roubaix, variously feted as "the Queen of the Classics" and cursed as "the Hell of the North." In 2006, L'Équipe published a gorgeous history of the race and it is this book, in an excellent idiomatic English translation by cycling historian David Herlihy, that has now been published by VeloPress. Compared to the vast tide of books about the Tour de France, this one appears to be the only substantial work in English about Paris-Roubaix, in spite of the race's legendary status. This in itself merits its inclusion on a cyclist's bookshelf, but the book has intrinsic qualities that make it a must-have.

Paris-Roubaix is a throwback to another age. When it began in 1896, the velodrome ruled the land and road races were the exception: difficult to organize and with only a few racers, unable to compete for the rich prizes of the tracks, available to participate. To enliven proceedings, some velodrome owners promoted road races to end at their tracks. This was the case of Paris-Roubaix, and at the first race was so novel and popular that part of the grandstand collapsed under the weight of spectators. The winner, the German strongman Josef Fischer, completed the race at an average of over 30 km/h. So this race had everything: an international field, a challenging route and an enthusiastic audience. It has gone from strength to strength as the other classics from that year (Paris-Mons? Paris-Royan? Bordeaux-Paris?) are long gone, along with most of the velodromes. This book covers the race from its beginnings, a time when cobblestones were commonplace and men and bikes seemed to have been made of iron, to today's carbon-fiber age but the race has always been brutally hard, a merciless test of men and equipment.

The authors have approached the race in a clever and unusual fashion. Rather than following a chronology, the majority of the eleven chapters of "Paris-Roubaix: A Journey Through Hell" are divided into different aspects of the race These include: the cobblestones themselves; the impact of the weather; messed-up finishes; unexpected winners; the Roubaix velodrome; and a brilliant chapter devoted to the effects of getting a flat tire. There is a gallery of the most celebrated winners and the whole book is stuffed with marvellous photos taken from the archives of L'Équipe. There appear to have been photographers present at every dramatic crash, or else there are always so many crashes that you just have to stand around and wait.

The race has attracted cycling's greatest figures, who seem to have always had a love-hate relationship. Bernard Hinault felt that Paris-Roubaix was a ridiculous race, a lottery where chance ruled but he knew that posterity demanded that he win Paris-Roubaix. He did it in convincing fashion in 1981, wearing the rainbow jersey of the World Champion, and crushing five opponents (four of them previous P-R winners!) in the final sprint at the velodrome. Although the race counts several other Tour de France victors among its winners, including Garin, Lapize Coppi and Merckx, it is more notable for its special "hard men," who have specialized in beating the cobbles, such as four-time winner Roger de Vlaeminck, three-time champion Francesco Moser and the indomitable Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle, who participated in the race seventeen times, finally winning on the 14th attempt and repeating the following year. Their stories are all told in loving detail in this book.

Details indeed. For example, there is a section recounting how Jean Stablinski, a former World Champion, suggested a particular section of cobbles to the race organizers and the famous Wallers-Arenberg stretch, a positively medieval piece of road, was added in 1968. The modernization of France meant the removal or paving over the cobbles that are such a characteristic (and feared) part of the race and by 1968 the race against time was on as the countryside was scoured to find more cobbled roads. At its lowest point in 1965, the Queen of the North had only some 22 kms of cobblestones in its 294 km route. Today efforts have been made to protect and preserve the famous roads and the pros can look forward to more than 50 kms of pavé in twenty-six sections. And the mud and the dust are with us always.

And the people who protect and preserve the roads are the subject of the last chapter, "The Angels of Hell." Described as the "guardians of the temple," these include journalists, fans and even the artist, who painted 12 kilometers of cobbles (using 18 tons of paint) as a work of art and a tribute in 1986. This is the kind of insight so lovingly presented in "Paris-Roubaix: A Journey through Hell". There is no reference to the amateur version of the ride, held in September rather than in the third week of April as is the pro race, but the Everyman participants in that ride are given a piece of pavé when they reach the velodrome in Roubaix as a memento, echoing pro cycling's most cherished trophy, the single cobblestone mounted on a plaque, that goes to Cycling's Strongest Man every Spring. A beautiful book about a not-so-beautiful race.

If you're looking for a book that covers the emotional, technical and psychological aspect of the Paris-Roubaix, then this is the one. The photographs are phenomenal, the written text entertaining and the book overall is highly recommended. A must-have for all cyling enthusiasts!

This is the ultimate telling of the Paris-Roubaix story. L'enfer du Nord as it is know in France, is one of the most grueling and notorious one-day races held every spring for last 100+ years. Most famous is the stretch of cobblestone pave that makes for the toughest section of the race. If it is too dry, dust occludes everything, and if it is wet the cobbles are dangerously slippery and muddy. In either case it is a bone jarring ride and no sane place to have a bike race.

The book is excellently laid out with a history of the race, profiles on the key winners and special sections on some of the features that make this race unique. For example there is a chapter dedicated to describing the feel and the mood of the showers in the velodrome at the end of the race. Unlike any locker room in any other sport, these showers are a unique character of the race in their own right. It is where the warriors relive, consul, try to forget, and most importantly remove the caked on mud from the day.

The best feature is the 100 years of photographs that capture the pain, glory, and muddy mess that makes up this unique event.

This is a must own for any cycling fan.

A must read. Especially for the healing professions. Medical students. More. Deserves a place in the "end of life" literature. Those who teach memoir-writing will also be inspired. First-rate family saga of a first-rate family.

no plot review could do the magic of this book justice--because it's not so much what happens: pickling peaches, say, or, visiting doctors, diners, and rib purveyers. it's the comedic timing, the brilliant, telling details and writing so fine that you can't get through more than a dozen pages without underlining a sentence or two. also, lise is a reliable and honorable narrator who helps you now only understand her relationships but create your own with the complete and complicated characters in the book. it's just too good not to read.

George Newton Fundenberg is a cantankeous, opionated, black man from rural Georgia who married a white woman, moved to the North, became a successful real estate broker and is the proud father of three daughters. He is difficult to get along with and even more difficult to please. His daughter, Lise, is determined to do just that, get along with and please him before he dies. In the process, she is introduced to the Southern tradition of roasted pig (pig candy), Southern hospitality and Jim Crow laws. This is a beautifully written, vividly painted memoir and a worthwhile read in its own right. Anyone who has dealt with an aging, ailing parent will identify with Lise's struggles and preserverance to bring her relationship with her father to a healthy but loving closure for both of them.

Pig Candy: Taking My Father South, Taking My Father Home--A Memoir

Never, not ever, not Amy Tan, not Toni Morrison, not any of my
favorites (not even Alice Walker) has shown the ability to expose
herself--to bare her proverbial soul, while respecting boundaries;
those of her self, her subjects, her family and her readers. I have
never known any writer, of any gender, to speak so truly and deeply
from within, in such a matter of fact manner while conveying
unparrelled integrity, and without manipulation of the readers' emotions.
No preaching, no judgment; just accessible values and hopefulness, as
if it is an easy, everyday thing to do.

Become aware of life in the New World between invading Eurpeans and Native Americans in this beautifully and powerfully written book. It will inform and shock you with it insights into the two vastly different cultures and shed light on modern day American values that have often go astray. Another book of insight, passion and info on Native Americans is Walking the Trail, One Man's Journey Along the Cherokee Trail of Tears by Cherokee author Jerry Ellis. He was the first person in modern history to walk the 900 mile route and the book was nominated for a Pulitzer and National Book Award.

Gleach does a wonderful job of presenting both worlds while maintaining an objective outlook. I have truely enjoyed reading this selection based on that alone. Gleach manages to keep you informed of the details yet helps you to gain new prospective on the view of both cultures. He not only tries to make sense of what happened in the contact period but does a good job of making you understand why it happened the way it did. Not your average Native American/ Colonial Conflict documentary. A wonderful job of teaching the Native side that you never learned in school. Blaming neither side for the outcome Gleach will make hard work of any other writer pulling off one as good.

Fred Gleach's piece is both acute and aggresive. Fered Gleach writes this book like only Fred Gleach can. This means a lot. Not everyone can live up to their potential. Fred Gleach lives up to his potential here. I tell you- this is Fred Gleach writing from Fred Gleach's heart. This means a lot. Some of us write, and it is not from the heart, or it is to get tenure. But Fred Gleach here writes this book like only Fred Gleach can. Some things, like the truth, is important. This Fred Gleach's message. This book is very Gleachian. This means a lot.

Buy it.

In this book, Gleach (Cornell University), who was a consultant on Terrence Malick's new movie "The New World," provides a wise, interesting, and readable analysis of the much-fabled Native American-English encounter in what became Virginia. AMong other things, his analysis makes sense of an incident that most everyone has heard of and many (not least the Disney studio) have sentimentalized: Pocahontas's intervention to save Captain John Smith in 1608.

What Gleach does convincingly in this book is to draw on his extensive knowledge of Algonquian(-language-speaking) peoples to interpret the scant records of Powhatan culture and cultural assumptions. To understand Powhatan reactions to the English immigrants, we need to put aside our knowledge of who won in the long run. It was far from obvious to the Powhatan that they were going to be subordinated by aliens who were barely surviving. An earlier attempt to establish a Spanish colony had failed. The Powhatan sought to incorporate the English within their society (the one to which the English had immigrated), though none of the English ever seemed to conceive that "heathen inferiors" believed that they could and should make the rules for uninvited and unruly immigrants to the Powhatan homeland.

The English view prevailed, and colonial history has been written from the viewpoint of the winners. As Marshall Sahlins has done for the native Hawaiians' understanding of Captain Cook's incursions, Gleach has recovered a plausible picture of "how natives think" (the title of Sahlins's second book about initial English-Hawaiian contacts). In addition to showing the rationality within their own understandings of the world and proper human interaction of how the Powhatan tried to educate (literally reform) those who thrust into the Powhatan world by drawing on studies of other Algonquian cultures, Gleach also draws on extensive knowledge of English culture ca. 1600 when the Church of England was relatively new and in the English view recently legitimated by the defeat of the Catholic would-be invaders.

An excellent explanation of what bandwidth is all about and what it means. Gives information not found in textbooks or industry documents. Answers such questions as why digital isn't always better than analog. Very well organized and treats subjects such as audio bandwidth and video bandwidth in different chapters. Filled with interesting tidbits, the book makes for some excellent reading. Some will see the book as leisure reading, others as something more serious. I saw it as both!

Wow, this is the best book I've ever read on a technological subject. If you are a non-technical person and want to know how your phone, cell phone, fax, modem,TV, radio, internet work in layman's terms; this is your book!. Better yet the book does all that in under 200 pages. Oh yeah, it also tells explains bandwidth and how we're never going to have enough despite what you may have heard about the coming "broadband revolution".

Although I've been involved in professional video production for the last 25 years in the non-technical area, I finally understand how a TV signal is transmitted and received after reading this book. I take back all the bad things I ever said about Microsoft, because they're the ones who published this outstanding book. I'm sadden that the author has past away. He had a unique ability to take very complicated stuff and explain it to liberal arts majors like myself and it's too bad he won't be around to write more. His clear thinking and economy of words is in very short supply in the technical book area...kind of like bandwidth.

If you've ever been puzzled by bandwidth or wanted to know more about it, this book is for you. For most of us, bandwidth is how much information we can get in front of us how quickly. But how does it happen? How can the same piece of copper wire that carries a low-grade voice signal to us at a mere four thousand bits per second also carry a high-quality mixture of images and text, even motion video, at over a million bits per second? What's the difference between the original bandwidth of radio broadcast frequency bands and bandwidth as we usually read about it in the popular media? Lu starts from the beginning, not neglecting the Stone Age, and carries us through the telegraph (including a widely-used system we had never heard of called the optical telegraph) into today's computer and telecommunication networks. In two chapters, "Thinking about Bandwidth" and "Looking at Bandwidth," he provides fascinating comparisons of bandwidths, proving, among other things, that it would be 640,000 times faster to fly 6 million CD-ROMs to Europe on a Boeing 747 than to upload them over the European E-1 lines under the Atlantic. But the book is practical, too, containing compact tables that define and compare various bandwidth measurements, starting with the hertz (cycles per second) for analog bandwidth and bps (bits per second) for digital bandwidth. Two chapters explain broadcast bandwidth, audio and video, the latter including brief explanations of TV standards, cable TV, color TV, and satellite TV. Datacasting is explained, too - how non-video data can be carried along with the video signal. In another long chapter, Lu explains Point-to-Point (rather than broadcast) Bandwidth, both wired and wireless transmission media and methods. A final chapter, devoted to bandwidth on the Internet, compares in human terms the ways to access the Internet (ISDN, DSL, cable modems, and wireless and satellite). Lu, the former science and technology editor for the Children's Television Workshop in the U.S., hopes that future bandwidth growth will be filled by better science content for children. He wonders whether bandwidth will be shared fairly among the world's peoples, rich and poor. He notes that bandwidth bottlenecks will persist and that the amount of bandwidth required for widespread video-on-demand and full-motion videoconferencing is not likely to arrive in this generation.

Cary Lu, a well-known science writer and editor, died shortly before the book was completed and final sections were written by his friends, New York Times computer columnist Stephen Manes and Adam Engst, author of the Internet Starter Kit series. Without in any way stinting on the details, this book aims for the general reader who needs help with technical explanations. It's also written by someone who has thought carefully about the significance of bandwidth. At whatis.com, where we continually fine-tune our definition of bandwidth, The Race for Bandwidth is a book that we have been unconsciously waiting for. Now that it's here, we plan to keep it very handy.

A great read -- very informative, not too technical (or, more properly, technical, but without jargon), and wide-ranging. Stephen Manes and Adam Engst deserve our thanks for shepherding it to completion after Cary Lu's death in 1997.

I find it unfortunate that the book is published as part of Microsoft Press's "Strategic Technology" series, whose other titles seem to be much more geek-specific: "Understanding ActiveX and OLE", "Understanding Electronic Commerce", "Understanding Intranets". Perhaps they are also aimed at a general audience, but since Lu's book covers so much about non-computing activities such as telegraphy, broadcasting, telephones, and even shipping and air flight -- stuff that should be interesting to people who aren't that computer-focused -- it seems that it's been relegated to a publishing ghetto from which it deserves to escape.

The cover doesn't help much, describing it as the "guide to key technologies behind fast Internet connectivity, wireless communications, video conferencing, and interactive television." It's more than that. It's a guide to so much that we use already today, not just these technologies of most people's future. The most interesting sections for me so far have discussed FM radio and shutter telegraphs, for instance.

This book should not live in the Computing section of bookstores, but in the general science section. It will surely outlive every other title in the

"Strategic Technology" series, because it deals with more universal topics in a less time-limited way. It would be sad to see it in the ubiquitous computer title remainder bins in a year or two, when it should really continue to be printed like other wonderful general science books such as James Gleick's "Chaos" or Stephen Jay Gould's essay collections.

It's also a shame that Lu wasn't around to promote the book. I think it could have reached a wider audience if he were able to do the promotional and talk-show circuit to entice people with its broad scope and easy fascination.

Don't think of this as just another "neato new technology" book. The book is good enough and concise enough that I read it voraciously in a little over a day. It's a miracle of brevity that rivals Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style" guide to writing good English, and E. Annie Proulx's novels.

I'm amazed at how much is packed into a relatively slim volume, and how much of that information likely won't require revision for a long time. In particular, the early chapters discussing what bandwidth is and how it plays into the history of communications are, with a few exceptions such as pricing examples, pretty timeless.

Other sections seem (understandably, given the author's death before completion) a bit rushed and muddled, and could use clearing up. Some of the discussions of digital cell phone technology, and particularly granularity, seem dropped in from somewhere else, without proper context or explanation -- as if surrounding parts were missing.

The glossary is sometimes helpful, sometimes tautological -- having separate listings for each acronym, when the full definition is often a line or two away, also seems redundant.

Despite its flaws, I encourage you to buy it sight unseen. Not only will it outlast most more expensive technology titles you could purchase, it will give you a broad understanding which those books can't touch.

Even if you work for the phone company and live and breathe bandwidth every day, you'll certainly learn something -- such as why the world's best AM radio is made in New Zealand, that 18th century French optical telegraphs had bandwidths of a fraction of a bit per second, or that someone with graduate degrees in Physics and Biology once worked on "Sesame Street".

This is a superb book. Its very well written and exceptionally well researched and thought through. Anyone who's interested in the work of Springsteen, Guthrie and Whitman or the liberatory potential of popular culture will find this book fascinating. I read it like a thriller - staying up all night.

Garman works from a rigorously principled political position which leads him to be very even handed in his assesment of the achievments and failures of the subjects of his study. This is no hagiography but it also has none of the self righteous contempt for the popular that infects so much cultural studies.

This is exemplary work.

Bryan Garman's book provides an indepth study of those singer-songwriters who, according to the author, follow in Whitman's footsteps. He analyzes Woody Guthrie and Springsteen's work thoroughly. The consideration of Guthrie's "hurt song" is fascinating. The author also makes a good case for expanding our horizons beyond the white male heterosexual dominant order. I was rather taken aback to learn that some of my old favorite English folk club singalong songs smacked of homoeroticism. In particular, we are told that Tom Paxton's "Rambling Boy" is "a love song that contains and expresses a homoeroticism that permeated the work of socially engaged artists from Whitman to Traubel, Hughes to Guthrie" (p 159). Gosh, I wonder what Paxton would say about that! I agree with Mr. Garman, however, that much of this New Left rhetoric marginalizes women. That is why folks like Ani Di Franco seem far more engaging and even revolutionary than Springsteen. A Race of Singers has proved an invaluable book for me as I prepare my PhD dissertation at a Spanish university. I recommend it to anyone studying contemporary folk music and its place in recent history.

Garman's analysis of Springsteen, Dylan, Guthrie, and Whitman is very provocative. Especially his insights into Springsteen and the way in which his music played off against (or was interpreted as being in sync with) Reagan's politics, and pop culture in the 80s, such as Rambo. Definitely a worthwhile read for someone who considers her or himself a fan of any of the aforementioned singers, or someone interested in an in-depth analysis of the politics of these singers.

As a cultural figure of the late 20th century Bruce Springsteen has long been admired as well as the object of derision in some circles. Garman's work places Springsteen in a context far removed from the fickle nature of fame. By linking Springsteen with Guthrie and with Whitman Garman allows us to appreciate Springsteen as far more than his icon status as "the boss", but rather as the latest in a long line of cultural critics who allow us to "hold a mirror up to nature" as Shakespeare had Hamlet say long ago. Garman's book is not just for an admirer of Springsteen, but also for anyone with an appreciation for social commentary and its long rich history in the US.

The previous reviewers said it all; this book is great! I used it with my Honors Social Studies and Language Arts class, and you could have heard a pin drop! Well done, Sally Crum!

Race To The Moonrise is a carefully researched adventure tale of two young Mogollon trader children who run an exciting race against the full moonrise in prehistoric (1200 A.D.) northern Mexico and southwestern U.S. Little Basket, the young girl prophetess and her brother Long Legs make the arduous journey from their village in northern Mexico to the area of Chimney Rock and Finger Rocks, near the Four Corners area of today, before the 19th full moonrise to participate in a religious ceremony. All details are carefully researched and help authenticate this exciting children's educational action adventure book. Note: Race To The Moonrise was approved for use with Native American children by the Intertribal Cultural Committee of the Council for Indian Education. It is fascinating to follow the ebb and flow of this exciting tale. So much of early Native American prehistory is not known, yet what can be surmised of these ancient MesoAmericans is both intriguing and of enduring value to the young people of today. Race To The Moonrise is a fine work to honor one's ancestors with.

Race to the Moonrise, by archaeologist Sally Crum, is a wonderful resource for teachers teaching the history and cultures of the Southwest and Colorado. It is a fictional story which contains a vivid picture of the cultures of the Southwest from Casa Grande to Chimney Rock in Colorado. I used it with my fourth grade students to enable them to visualize the people and their lifestyle, compare the environments, weapons, religions, clothing, tools, foods, building styles, use of natural resources, trade, household objects, and travel of the Pre-Puebloan people. The story is appropriate for fourth grade and above and through a fictional narrative with carefully researched background, keeps students interested and learning throughout. The author has also published a teacher's guide with questions and activities to use with the book. I would recommend Race to the Moonrise to other teachers. It has been a great addition to my unit on Colorado History.

I have a really difficult time reviewing children's books. Until now. I have just finished "Race to the Moonrise: An Ancient Journey" by Ouray, CO author Sally Crum. It is a wonderful book. It was written for the fourth grade level, but let me tell you, I think readers of any age will not only enjoy the book but will finish it with a greater understanding of native American culture and feel good about having read it. The setting of the book is around 1200 AD and centers around Little Basket, a young girl with some very special powers, and her brother, Long Legs. These two, with their uncle, embark on a journey from their home in Mexico to what is now southwestern Colorado. The purpose of the journey, which takes them through the country of the Mogollon of New Mexico, the Hohokam of the Gila and Salt River Basins, the Sinagua of Wupatki Pueblo, the Hopi, and the Chaco Canyon, Aztec, Mesa Verde and Chimney Rock Pueblo peoples, is to save their village. Besides being a great read, the book is impressively accurate in its description of the native American cultures, and geographic and archaeological places which exist today. On a recent trip which included many of those places I was amazed at the author's accuracy. Do Little Basket and Long Legs save the village? To be sure, it's not here today. But then, when a little girl has special powers and a strong, brave, and protective brother...who knows? Sally Crum is a working archaeologist and has worked for numerous national parks and monuments over the past 16 years. The book has been approved for use with Native American children by the Intertribal Cultural Committee of the Council for Indian Education and published by Western Reflections Inc., so you know the quality is second to none. This is a wonderful, enchanting book. It is truly for children of all ages...right up into geezerhood!

In Whitaker's heavily researched and well-documented study of the struggle for African American equality and rights in Phoenix, he proves without a doubt that racial discrimination was not confined to the South and some Northern cities during the latter half of the twentieth century as is commonly believed, but thrived in the West as well.
However, Whitaker's study does not focus on activist groups or civil rights legislation as one might expect. Instead he looks at the "race work" of the Ragsdales, a wealthy and influential black Phoenician couple who had achieved their career goals against all odds and through their own perseverance. Whitaker chronicles their rise to prominence, but more importantly, examines their contributions to their community and to the civil rights movement, as well as the influence and knowledge they imparted on colleagues and activists.
Their personal experiences along with that of other black Phoenicians provide compelling, but disturbing evidence of racial discrimination in Phoenix from the 1940s through the 1990s in areas such as housing, employment, and public accommodations. Whitaker also includes some discussion of the controversial MLK Holiday issue that earned Arizona the reputation as a racist state during the late '80s and early '90s (as a Californian, I know that Arizona continues to have this reputation in the minds of many people here today).
Dr. Whitaker's book not only helps to fill a gap in the literature on the Western civil rights movements, it also expands the discussion of civil rights from the activists and ministers to other members of the black (and sometimes Hispanic and Jewish) communities who generally do not get recognized for the efforts.
Whitaker cannot discuss every aspect of civil rights and race relations in Arizona during the late twentieth century, but his book is an excellent place to start. Hopefully "Race Work" will encourage more scholars to research this relatively unexplored area of inquiry and expand on the issues Whitaker brings up. Perhaps even more significantly, "Race Work," if read widely, also has the potential to cause many Arizonans, and Americans in general, to re-examine their own attitudes and feelings about race, if they have even examined them at all.

Race Work fills a much needed void on the topic of civil rights in the American West. Dr. Whitaker has written a very readable and insightful book on this topic. Arizona has been overlooked for its trailblazing in the areas of school desegregation, and integration of housing and public facilities. This book is a tribute to Dr. Lincoln Ragsdale, and his wife Eleanor. This is a must read for anyone interested in civil rights, historical perspectives of the American West, and biographies.

Scholars are finally beginning to recognize that African American history, the history of the civil rights movement, and the intersection of race, class and gender in U.S. history, can be examined in areas west of the Mississippi River! Whitaker's work is the latest in a growing body of literature in this area. His book is original, well-researched, and readible. More importantly, it truly offers readers a dramatic and colorful history of African Americans and "race work" in the American west...a region still ripe for further study.

This is the most important book on African Americans in the West in recent years and builds excellently on the scholarship of Quintard Taylor and others.
Dr. Whitaker shows how the Ragsdale's livelihood came through the mortuary business, but was not a dead end for the family, in fact it infused them and the African American community in Phoenix with the lifeblood of cultural and economic resistance and eventually the Valley with changes of integration. The Ragsdale's lives read as a textbook example of change and struggle as their stories are so intertwined with the national narrative for racial equality. Both Lincoln and Eleanor grew up with strong notions of "race work" the idea that you have a responsibility not only to succeed, but to help others in your community succeed too. Lincoln was a Tuskegee airmen and later part of an experiment to see about the integration of the Air force before following in the footsteps of his parents and entering the funereal business. Eleanor was a schoolteacher, prior to leaving her paying work to raise children and focus on the family's business interests.
As the Ragsdale's tried to break into the Phoenix economy and community they found closed doors and prohibitive racial barriers at every corner in the form of segregation and institutional racism. Through "education, entrepreneurship, political activism, integrationism, and philosophy of non-violent protest" the Ragsdale's helped to desegregate businesses, schools and social institutions throughout Phoenix and the Valley of the Sun. This was largely achieved through their social activism and leadership in groups like the NAACP, again tying them to the larger US historical narrative.
This work is very important as it dispels the historiographical myth that African Americans were not Westerners. Instead, it shows how African Americans fought the same kinds of racism and segregation as their counterparts in other regions, but with much less national support. The fight for the Ragsdales was carried out through the strong personalities of a few individuals in the Phoenix Valley, using tactics of national organizations within community associations.
This is an outstanding work and should be used in classrooms of the US West and courses dealing with race relations, as well as community histories. This work is both impressive and comprehensive and is a must own for general readers and scholars alike!

I read these books as a teenager and loved them. They dealt with real life and covered a spectrum of emotions. Reading these books actually helped me deal with issues in my own life. I highly recommend the whole series!

The Golden Filly series was absolutely fantastic! I would highly recommend this series. You will be blessed in a very special way and inspired by these books whether you're a Christian or not. I will definitely reread and save these books for the rest of my life. I've read a lot of books, but none have touched me in the same way as this series has. If you love horses and enjoy reading about a person's life, even if it is fiction, you'll love these books.

I have read all 10 books in this series. They are great! I would not put a book down once I started reading it! THe longest it took me too read one book was 3 days! I wish there was 10 more books! I encourage everyone too read this series!I put my books up in my hope chest to save for my kids. If i ever have kids that is!

Started reading this series in 5th grade and I am now in college but I will never forget this series. You will laugh and you will cry but you will definetly be impacted by Trish's story.