MBR: The American History Shelf
MWBOOKREVW
Crisis In The Southwest
Richard Bruce Winders
Scholarly Resources
104 Greenhill Ave, Wilmington DE 19805
0-8420-2801-3 $17.95 1-800-772-8937
Readers of American history in general and Southwest events in particular will
find Crisis In The Southwest, a survey of the US/Mexican struggle over Texas,
to be clear and well done. The logic and events of the Mexican War and Texas
Revolution come clear with a story which covers both ideologies and underlying
roots of conflict.
Whispers On The Color Line
Gary Fine & Patricia Turner
University of California Press
2120 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, CA 94720
0520209885 $27.50 www.amazon.com
Drawing upon more than twenty years of study and analysis, by Gary Fine
(Professor of Sociology, Northwestern University) and Patricia Turner
(Vice-Provost of Undergraduate Studies and Professor of African American and
African Studies, University of California, Davis) Whispers On The Color Line:
Rumor And Race In America is a superbly presented, collaborative treatise on
narrative folklore prevelent in contemporary American society in the form of
legends and stories informally circulated among the general public, and which
have served to confuse and reinforce misinformation regarding a wide range of
social issues. These are tales traveling mostly by word-of-mouth and focusing a
diversity of subjects ranging from alleged governmental conspiracies, to
possible food tampering, to the foibles of celebrities. An impressive, seminal,
and scholarly work, Whispers On The Color Line addresses how these gossip
ladened tales reflect attitudes that blacks and whites have about each other,
and how such stories serve a pervasive social purpose of "expressing the
inexpressible. Whispers On The Color Line is a ground breaking work and highly
recommended for Contemporary Sociology, Social Anthropology, African-American
Studies, and American Popular Culture Studies supplemental reading lists and
academic reference collections.
Oswald's Trigger Films
John Loken
Falcon Books
Box 7203, Ann Arbor, MI 48107-7203
0964889730 $7.95 www.amazon.com
Deftly written about the assassination of American President John F. Kennedy,
Oswald's Trigger Films holds to the belief that a lone assassin murdered
America's beloved leader... and makes the case three movies dealing with
presidential assassinations influenced the gunman and killer Oswald. These
three movies, "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962), "We Were Strangers" (1949),
and "Suddenly" (1954) are examined in detail and their impact on Oswald's
disturbed mind is carefully discussed. John Loken's Oswald's Trigger Films
offers a fascinating, unique, and somewhat disturbing analysis that will be of
immense interest to students the Kennedy Assassination and its aftermath.
Born Free And Equal
Ansel Adams
Spotted Dog Press
P.O. Box 1721, Bishop, CA 93515-1721
1893343057 $45.00 www.amazon.com
Born Free And Equal: The Story Of Loyal Japanese Americans is an impressive
combination of historic photographs and writings about the Japanese-Americans
who were imprisoned in Manzanar, one of ten such relocation camps, as a result
of wartime fears regarding possible sabotage by members of the Japanese and
Nisei (American-born men and women of Japanese ancestry) living along the
American west coast. During the era of World War II, virtually all the American
people of Japanese descent in the states of California, Oregon and Washington
(most of them citizens), were interned in relocation camps scattered through
the Midwest. Born Free And Equal captures memories of this prison community and
how the families in it lived in broad, sweeping, black-and-white photographs.
Born Free And Equal is powerful, highly recommended, historically factual book,
accurately capturing with poetic realism a dark and controversial aspect of
America's WW II effort, which, along with such horrors as the European
Holocaust and the Japanese atrocities in the Far East, must never be forgotten.
The Madonna Of 115th Street
Robert A. Orsi
Yale University Press
Box 209040, New Haven, CT 06520-9040
0300091354 $17.95 www.amazon.com
In The Madonna Of 115th Street, Robert A. Orsi (Charles Warren Professor of
American Religious History, Harvard University) offers a seminal and ground
breaking study of faith and community in New York City's Italian Harlem. The
focus of this treatise is the annual Catholic festival called "Madonna of 115th
Street" and how it has both influenced and reflects the lives of the men and
women of the neighborhood. The Madonna Of 115th Street reveals a compelling
perspective on how religion plays out in the everyday lives and experiences of
American Catholics and the formation of a distinctive immigrant community. This
Yale "Nota Bene" paperback edition is highly recommended reading and enhanced
with a new introduction by Orsi outlining the changes that Italian Harlem has
undergone in recent years and the significant shifts that have occurred in the
field of American religious history.
Ranching West Of The 100th Meridian
Richard L. Knight, et al.
Island Press
1718 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Suite 300, Washington, DC 20009
1559638273 $25.00 www.amazon.com
Collaborative edited by Richard Knight, Wendell Gilgert, and Ed Martson,
Ranching West Of The 100th Meridian: Culture, Ecology And Economics is an
impressive and informative anthology of articulate essays by a wide variety of
learned and experienced authors, focusing on assorted aspects of the ranch life
in western America, and how ranching affects surrounding communities and the
nation as a whole. Charts, graphs and a handful of black/white photographs
illustrate this serious-minded and intriguing study. From Ranching: An Old Way
Of Life In The New West (Paul F. Starrs); to Perceptions Of Ranching: Public
Views, Personal Reflections (Mark Brunson & George Wallace); to Re-Creating The
West One Decision At A Time (Allan Savory); to Saving The Family Ranch: New
Directions (Ben Alexander & Luther Propst), the seventeen essays comprising
Ranching West Of The 100th Meridian are compelling, challenging, superbly
presented, highly recommended reading.
No More Silence
Larry A. Sneed
University of North Texas Press
Box 311336, Denton, TX 76203-1336
1574411489 $24.95 www.amazon.com
No More Silence: An Oral History Of The Assassination Of President Kennedy by
Larry A. Sneed is a solid primary reference of a shattering event that changed
America forever. The personal testimonies of eyewitnesses, policemen, and
people involved in the transfer of Oswald fill this solid reference book that
adds the weight of human emotion and perspective to shelves of historical
analysis. A "must" for Kennedy assassination conspiracy buffs, No More Silence
is a unique, uncensored, and very highly recommended reading.
The Bureau And The Mole
David A. Vise
Atlantic Monthly Press
841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003
0871138344 $25.00 www.amazon.com
The Bureau And The Mole: The Unmasking Of Robert Philip Hanssen, The Most
Dangerous Double Agent In FBI History by "Washington Post" journalist and
Pulitzer Prize winner David A. Vise is an compelling inside look at the
gripping true story of Robert Philip Hanssen, the American Federal Bureau of
Investigation agent who sold U.S. intelligence and secrets to Moscow, and of
Louis J. Freeh, the FBI director who finally caught him. Deceit, machinations,
secret deals, FBI blunders, and more are presented in this incredible and
fascinating tale of Cold War espionage, and one so twisted that it seems like
something expected only from the movies. A dark, insidious, yet utterly
compelling book, The Bureau And The Mole is highly recommended reading.
New Homes For Old
Sophonisba P. Brteckinridge
Transaction Publishers
Rutgers - The State University , 35 Berrue Circle, Piscataway, NJ 08854
076580607X $29.95 1-888-999-6778
The new edition of New Homes For Old by Sophonisba P. Breckinridge (1866-1948)
is enhanced with an informative introduction by Steven J. Diner (Professor and
Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers University) is an amazing,
exhaustive history of American immigrants, focusing in detail on how they
lived, cared for their children, coped with cultural shock, made an economic
living and much more. Covering immigration from all over the world, from the
Ukraine to Italy to Sweden, New Homes For Old is a fascinating qualitative
study of family life as well as cultural and economic adaptation. Highly
recommended reading for students of Gender Studies, Ethnic History, Progressive
Era social research, and the history of social work in America.
The Lost Journals Of Charles S. Armstrong
Christian J. Buys
Western Reflections Publishing Co.
P.O. Box 1647, Montrose, CO 81402
1890437662 $16.95 www.amazon.com
The Lost Journals Of Charles S. Armstrong: From Arkport, New York To Aspen
Colorado 1867-1894 is a remarkable primary source of the history of Western
America. These journals chronicle the life and times of Charles S. Armstrong, a
man who was one of thousands of fortune-seekers who ventured into Colorado in
the 1880s. Armstrong was one of the Aspen-area's first pioneers who build a
cabin, prospected for minerals, grew vegetables, fished and trapped, and much
more. Offered with an editor's overview giving historical context, the journals
are presented as-is day by day, with some ordinary days featuring only a line
or two and others meriting vivid, descriptive paragraphs. The Lost Journals Of
Charles S. Armstrong offers uniquely personal view of American life more than a
hundred years gone.
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