Amazon.com
So your adored son is nearing 30--or past it already--and still living at home, unable to hold onto a McJob for longer than six months running, relying on you to feed him and make his car payments. Your beautiful, brainy daughter is anorexic, or addicted to drugs, or unwilling to leave the man who hits her. Increasing numbers of baby boomers are finding that their grown children have fallen far short of their expectations. These parents are confused, angry, guilt-ridden, and ashamed. Jane Adams's When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us is for them. She reveals the kinds of disappointments that other parents are facing: kids who are unable or unwilling to support themselves, kids who are addicts or convicts, kids who've joined cults or seemingly dropped off the face of the earth. She stresses that these are real problems--but that they aren't the parents' problems. Adams reassures parents that they've done their jobs and that they don't have to spend the rest of their lives picking up the pieces for their grown children, emotionally, financially, or otherwise. Continuing to prop up kids who've repeatedly fallen on their own teaches them nothing; it's just a temporary fix. Beyond offering sympathy, reassurance, and wisdom, the book doesn't lay out a plan for solving anyone's problems, but reading it may help disappointed parents shuck some of their guilt and shame, gather the courage to take back their own lives, and let their grown children fend for themselves. --Jennifer Lindsay
Book Description
How do today's parents cope when the dreams we had for our children clash with reality? What can we do for our twenty- and even thirty-somethings who can't seem to grow up? How can we help our depressed, dependent, or addicted adult children, the ones who can't get their lives started, who are just marking time or even doing it? What's the right strategy when our smart, capable "adultolescents" won't leave home or come boomeranging back? Who can we turn to when the kids aren't all right and we, their parents, are frightened, frustrated, resentful, embarrassed, and especially, disappointed?
In this groundbreaking book, a social psychologist who's been chronicling the lives of American families for over two decades confronts our deepest concerns, including our silence and self-imposed sense of isolation, when our grown kids have failed to thrive. She listens to a generation that "did everything right" and expected its children to grow into happy, healthy, successful adults. But they haven't, at least, not yet -- and meanwhile, we're letting their problems threaten our health, marriages, security, freedom, careers or retirement, and other family relationships.
With warmth, empathy, and perspective, Dr. Adams offers a positive, life-affirming message to parents who are still trying to "fix" their adult children -- Stop! She shows us how to separate from their problems without separating from them, and how to be a positive force in their lives while getting on with our own. As we navigate this critical passage in our second adulthood and their first, the bestselling author of I'm Still Your Mother reminds us that the pleasures and possibilities of postparenthood should not depend on how our kids turn out, but on how we do!
Customer Reviews:
Validating and Empowering!.......2007-09-30
This book helped me understand and accept that my kids could swallow my life up whole UNINTENTIONALLY and really get in the way of me doing the things that I really want to do in my life.
I have always believed that it is in my kids best interest for me to raise them exactly the same way I was (at least in certain areas). So, I paid for their college education, gave them each a Visa, bought them cars, offered to pay for graduate schools, trips, insurance, etc.
What I inadvertently created, thinking I was acting in their best interest as those things were helpful to me at their age, were two kids - one with an alcohol problem and the other who's really dependent on others to do everything for him.
Don't get me wrong, they are great kids overall - these are just two aspects that have been challenging to handle.
In any event, when I discovered my son had an alcohol problem - I changed my tune in a hurry. Part of the reason he has this illness is that he has a lot of pain in his life that he's not dealing with. However, my contribution to it has been to give him too much money so he has the funds to binge drink as well as make his life so easy for him that it was enabling him rather than empowering him.
He is in denial and doesn't realize the issue. This book helped me be okay with that, realize I've done all I could by offering him treatment, etc - and that I have a life that I deserve enjoying. And that's a good thing!
With the other one, I learned that most likely I may watch him "shoot himself in the foot" over and over again. I do my best to offer him my guidance ahead of time when he wants it but usually he's a lot smarter than me he says.
So, again, I've learned that he'll do it his way and that's okay.
Again, I'm free to live my life knowing I'll help both of them to the extent they want me to that works with MY life.
There are so many parents with varied experiences on this theme. The first part of the book talks about experiences similar to mine.
The second half, though, is where I really realized that I'm okay and in fact doing good by them AND by me.
My only criticism is the word "disappoint" in the title. I didn't relate to that word personally as I didn't feel disappointed - confused, challenged, angry yes. Not disappointed because that implies expectations and I really didn't have any.
Very validating, helpful and empowering for me as a parent and as a person who deserves to enjoy their life.
excellent book.......2007-06-27
i felt that the book gave alot of insight into the issues that confront parents about how to handle the difficult situations that our adult children expect us to be partners in solving their problems. they hold us accountable for thr mistakes and that tends to tear their relationship with us apart.
So now what??.......2006-12-19
Adams spends a lot of time describing cases but offers very little in solutions. I know now where we are; we just need directions back.
Boomer specific.......2006-08-15
It was specific to the baby boomer parents. So older parents would not benefit from this book. More often than not, it stated the obvious, rather than giving helpful suggestions.
A Lifealtering book.......2005-10-26
This book has been the best thing I have done for myself in years. I have passed it on to several others who feel the same way. It's MUST reading for a generation dealing with adult children and their inevitable problems.
Book Description
This groundbreaking and eloquently written book explains how and why people are wedded to the notion that they belong to differing human kindstribe-type categories like races, ethnic groups, nations, religions, castes, street gangs, sports fandom, and high school cliques. Why do we see these divisions? Why do we care about them so much? Why do we kill and die for them? This is the stuff of news headlines. How has a nation gone from peaceful coexistence to genocide? How does social status affect your health? Why are teenagers willing to kill themselves in hazing rituals in order to belong to a fraternity or social group? How do terrorists learn not to care about the lives of those they attack? US AND THEM gets at the heart of these profound questions by looking at their common root in human nature. Politics, culture, and economics play their parts, but its the human mind that makes them possible, and thats the focus of US AND THEM. Were not born with a map of human kinds; each person makes his own and learns to fight for it. This is a crucial subject that touches all of our lives in ways both large and small, obvious and subtle. Human-kind thinkingwhether beneficial or destructiveis part of human nature, as David Berrebys brilliant book reveals.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent popular explanation of social psychology.......2007-07-20
"Us and Them" by David Berreby explores the human faculty for seeing other people as members of groups with group characteristics, or as Berreby calls them, Human Kinds. The book examines classic results of social psychology, such as Sharif's Robber's Cave experiment and Tajfel's arbitrary groups. He tries to present the current evidence for the faculty being an unconscious module in the mind that automatically places people in groups and attaches group qualities to Them.
The book is well written and has many vivid examples of how people stereotype and why those stereotypes are not reliable guides for rational human behavior. Although he occasionally dives into brain architecture and evolutionary theory, it is not too overwhelming for the intelligent lay reader (that all important Human Kind). The topic is very important, considering that issues of race, gender, religious conflict, and injustice based on economic class dominate our political scene. This book helps the reader get a better scientific footing on the psychological basis of those issues.
By exploring how our human minds--and by extension our brains--process group identity, the author is in an area that has been popular lately due in part to Steven Pinker's "How the Mind Works." This research area is called the modular theory of the mind, pioneered by people such as Jerry Fodor and Noam Chomsky. However, Berreby is wary of Pinker's complete programme. He explicitly criticizes Pinker. Never in this book does Berreby refer to a brain "module." Instead, he refers to the mind's code for processing human kind thinking, called kind-sight. To this reader, it amounts to the same thing. A module is a module. Berreby does make the point at length that there is no single chunk of brain that does all human kind code processing. (But, then, I don't think Pinker ever claimed that, either.)
Berreby does show that the human kind code is automatic, unconscious, and hardwired into the developing brain. This to me qualifies his theory as in the tradition of the modular theory of the mind.
Berreby also holds evolutionary theory at arm's length. He is wary of strict reductionism from social structures to selfish genes. He seems uncomfortable with Williams and Dawkins and their insistence that the selfish gene is the final arbiter of evolution. He shows that some of the assumptions of this camp are inseparable from the assumptions of "race realists" such as Rushton. This wariness leads to an excellent exploration of the nature of science and "levels of analysis." He describes the "selfish gene" camp and the "plurality of mechanisms" camp as two competing social groups that use stereotypes and intergroup hostility as part of their own human kind thinking. Clearly, he doesn't want to be a blind follower of either camp.
Nevertheless, it is obvious that he does consider the faculty for kind-sight to be an evolved and distinct mental structure. To that extent, he is, whether he admits it or not, an Evolutionary Psychologist (or Evo Psycho as he mentions in the book).
Berreby rejects what he sees as Pinker's pessimism about the human kind faculty. He ends to book with a hopeful gesture that we can take control of our own destiny by rationally controlling our irrational kind-sight faculty. But he admits that the faculty that propels us to reach the ideals of our human kinds is inseparable from the faculty that can lead to genocide. So I am not convinced that Berreby's conclusion should lead to optimism. Pinker's outlook was really not that much more pessimistic. All in all, they amount to nearly the same outlook.
Berreby is critical of thinkers who use this capacity within human nature for group violence to claim that human nature is evil. He expressedly does not want the evil potential for kind-sight to be used to bolster a theologically Christian worldview. But in the end, his conclusions do not eliminate that line of argument. So long as humans have an irrational kind-sight, which is built-in, we will be fully capable of prejudice and evil, and that capacity cannot be eliminated by any kind of socialization. The hope that everyone will rationally control their prejudices over the long-term is contradicted by human history. He leaves us with an unattainable ideal. Perhaps he gives us the ideal in the hopes of improving the actual, but his finale is more hopeful than plausible.
What's wrong with footnote numbers?.......2006-12-31
As an academic researcher and a lawyer, I admit I am biased in favor of a more scholarly presentation. I agree that this book is informative and I have found it helpful as a gateway to the professional literature. However, Berreby has made my task doubly difficult by his inexplicable failure to use footnote numbers for his references, instead organizing the references by page number and phrases at the end of sentences; thus giving no indication in the text that a reference even exists, and forcing the reader to labor mightily to locate his authority. Further, some studies he discusses are not even given a reference -- at the very least, a footnote should indicate the study is unpublished and where it might be located if a person needed it. If this information is summarized in any other book, I would buy it instead of this one.
Not quite there yet.......2006-08-19
There is plenty of excellent material to read here. The substance is good, but the form is bad. Major areas of concern:
a. While there is an overall theme to the book, I got lost moving from one chapter to another. Each chapter, while not written in a vacuum, seems to be disjointed from the preceding chapter.
b. Each chapter should have contained some concluding remarks to emphasize the major points with a bridge to the next chapter, rather than leaving the conclusion for the end of the book. The conclusion at the end of the book had some good points, but was not well written. The author seemed to be in a hurry to finish the book.
c. The author seemed to be all over the place at times.
d. The chapter headings and quotes at the beginning of the chapters did not seem to make a lot of sense.
e. Was not able to grasp fully the author's ultimate objective
Types, categories and groups.......2006-06-27
"Prejudice", we are told, isn't "reasonable". "Race" is an "illogical" or "unscientific" concept. Christians tell us we must "love all others as our brothers" - and sisters in a more ecumenical world. Yet Chief Executives can label entire nations as elements of an "Axis of Evil" and make or threaten war with impunity. And masses of the population support them. Why should this be so? David Berreby sought out philosophers, psychologists and other scholars in an extensive quest for some answers. He found a good many and recounts them in this nearly exhaustive study. In a well organised and captivating account, he weaves together many threads in building a picture of how we view ourselves and others.
Biology tells us that our DNA makes us one with our fellows. Yet, somewhere between conception and our ability to distinguish ourselves from others, we begin to categorise those "others". We may find them acceptable, and join their company. In other cases, we deem the differences unacceptable. "Us" and "Them" become the basis for value judgements. Berreby recognises that the distinctions are in our minds. He asks how they come to be there in the first place. He examines the various forms of prejudice, both positive and negative, in tracing both their histories and manifestations. Heart disease, for example, was once considered more prevalent among the rich and powerful. Now, studies show that those carrying burdens of pressures from "above" feel more stressed. Hence, their bodies react and heart problems follow. Classes of people, often the poor and ill-considered such as the "cagot" peasants in France, were despised and relegated to menial roles in society. Over time, the classification fell into disuse. In Berreby's words, they were "recategorised".
The author traces the mental patterns of how we "type" people. The process involves focussing on particular aspects while ignoring the rest. His favourite example is the motorist stopped by a police officer. The officer turns out to be a dark-skinned female. Does the motorist view the officer as a cop, as an Arab, as a light-skinned African or as a woman? For some of us, by the time we work it out, the ticket has been dispensed! The delay is due to our propensity to carry the "type" in our minds, then select characteristics that seem to fit. We generally select an essential characteristic and focus on that. Skin colour is an obvious "essential", but left-handedness or dress can be just as suitable.
These essentials, he argues, can be reinforced within ourselves, as well. In a famous study, Asian women were set into groups, some reminded that Asians are considered to excel in math, others that women are deficient in those skills. When tested, the ones who believed Asians are superior in math had higher test scores. "Type" reinforcement has many ways of developing and expressing beliefs. The best example of this is the military person. Recruits are trained to shed previously held categories, which are replaced with new values. Society at large dims as new loyalties to the squad are instilled. Sacrifice is raised in merit, and hierarchically, running from one's immediate mates, through the levels of the force and finally the nation as an entity. This training is not easily shed, as one marine demonstrated when he left his drinking chums to chat with a uniformed individual. Their shared experiences were more powerful than the friendship bonds.
How we acquire these in the first place is difficult to assess. It seems that it is essential for our dealing with the world at large. That condition dictates that the process is both universal and in the mind. Berreby offers a fine chapter on the areas of the brain involved in various body processes and emotional states. He briefly discusses the devices that indicate where in the brain various activities are recorded. PET and fMRI scanners are given their due, with some history of how the brain's "modules" were identified. He stresses, however, that seeking a "centre" for categorising others is fruitless. The mind's actions are too widely scattered and diverse. This situation may explain both why we may hold prejudices deeply, but can also shift them to lesser importance or even replace them with a new circumstance. With so many ways to "type" our fellows, emphasis can vary quickly and easily. While we like to think we can "top-down" direct our feelings about somebody, there may be equal signals from "bottom-up" to deflect or override our "reasoned" approach to others. Following this vein, Berreby examines the role of emotion as a driving force for categorising.
Is Berreby aiming to dislodge prejudice from our brains? Nothing so simplistic. Does he think training will deter a child from associating with an errant group? Not likely, since one of his primary examples is that of a group of boys who might have been social and ethnic clones dividing them into hostile groups. The separation grew intense until adults stepped in. Berreby is a realist, and provides a plausible structure for how we view others. Unfortunately, the thrust is sociological rather than cognitive, which is where he might have gained further insights. Although he spoke with many researchers, he ignored Daniel C. Dennett's "Consciousness Explained" which might have provided him with an expanded framework for how the process evolved and now works. While that shortcoming is serious, it doesn't detract from the value of this work's theme. Prejudices are not rigid dogma, and with a little effort we can examine and assess them in ourselves as well as in others. We can rebel against their dictates if we wish. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Lacks Focus.......2006-06-27
Us and Them by David Berreby is an attempt to understand the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of intergroup conflict. As such, it is only partly successful. Berreby begins with a discussion of "human kind" which covers everything from race to nation to a happenstance group of strangers in a woman's restroom. This is an overly broad definition that conflates true social groups with temporary collectives or "aggregates." The former develop identity, structure, and rivalries, while the latter do not. This broad beginning foreshadows a book that tends to lose its focus from chapter to chapter. Berreby leaves his thesis for pages at a time, often to discuss irrelevant though admittedly interesting neuroscience research. Nevertheless, the reader is often left wondering what happened to the tribal mind. Truth be told, neuroscience cannot yet explain the area of group conflict. Don't let yourself be dazzled into persuasion.
In addition to being overly broad and unfocused, at times Berreby is simply wrong. On page 36 he refers to the "flawed" research on similarity and interpersonal attraction, suggesting that people may join a group and then begin to act like them. This may well be true (due to various social influence effects), but the observation that people seek out similar others is one of the most robust and replicated findings in social psychology. Berreby is a little too eager to prove his point, and this leads him to distort and go beyond the evidence throughout the book.
I don't want to be completely negative in this review. Certainly, Berreby is a competent writer, and to some extent, this book fills an important niche. Still, I wish he had gone about it in a different way. There is plenty of good research on group relations that he ignores. His neuroscience approach is clever, but ultimately futile as an explanation.
Customer Reviews:
Honors the legacy.......2007-01-31
For readers of the original Agee/Evans collaboration, "And Their Children" is well worth the time. The reporter and photographer tracked down the 116 living offspring of the pseudonymous Gudger, Ricketts, and Woods families, as well as those who were part of the original book (12 of 22 who appeared in "Let Us Now" were still alive when they began their research in 1986). Not all were willing to be interviewed or photographed, but many were.
As with the first book, the tale here is not a particularly happy one. The author begins by recounting the suicide of Maggie Louise Gudger, age 10 in 1936, a particular favorite of Agee's, and dead at age 45--the same age at which Agee himself died from drink. And yet there are varying degrees of hope in many of the stories, such as that of Maggie Louise's daughter Debbie and her children.
The structure of the book follows each family through different periods: 1936-1940; 1940-1960; and 1960-1986. The author also includes sections on one of the local landowning families (which was far from rich!) and an African-American sharecropping family. Along the way, we learn surprising things about the evil (and Faulknerian) Fred Ricketts, the fate of Clair Bell (she did not die at age 4, as Agee had feared she would), the struggles of George Gudger, and the families' views on Agee, Evans, and the original book. About the children and grandchildren, we find out about those who ran away (and usually came back) and those who stayed; marriages; children; the end of farming; attempts at succeeding at school and at work; closeness and bitterness. It's all grippingly told. And the photographs that allow one to compare the state of things in 1936 and 1986 are excellent. Several photos exactly re-capture the originals.
Quibbles: Naturally, I think, the sections on the two families who did not appear in the first book are less interesting. They could have been abbreviated. Also, the author's (negative) take on the state of America in 1986 is garden-variety journalism for that time. These sections are easily avoided, however, and do not detract from the writing about the original families.
Counter to the author's gloomy opinions, his stories indicate that many of these descendents of share-croppers emerged from the Depression to enjoy a slow but steady material progress. Maggie Louise's grandchildren, now in their thirties, should do even better over the course of their lives. One hopes that another writer-photographer team will venture to Hobe's Hill in 2036 to test that proposition.
Quite interesting........2005-07-25
While I have Let Us Now Praise Famous Men on deck to read as well, the friend who loaned me the books explained she found And Their Children After Them first, and actually liked reading them in reverse order. So, I chose to follow her lead.
The book, even standing alone, is an intensely personal and touching look into the lives of people who many of us who enjoy the luxury of writing reviews on the Internet can never really understand. The backgrounds, upbringings and challenges were so vastly different, and the book does a good job of showing us something different, something very real.
I can understand the retiscence of some to participate in the book -- while reading passages in this book I often thought to myself what it would feel like to be the person being written about and to see the things about them in print. Like our society, there is a great deal of judgement in the book -- while they try to avoid it, it is there, and it's painful at times.
But it's all worth it, in my opinion, to uncover the many thought provoking things that relate to our world today, and that give me a better understanding of history and people's place within it.
Poignant and thought-provoking.......2000-10-19
This book should be read right after reading James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Mem. Unfortuantely I read it over four years before I read Agee's work. When I read this book--in Feb 1996--I wrote to myself: This is a book Newt Gingrich and the crazy House freshmen should read--people who are so intent that those who cannot make it on their own should not make it.
A "Must Have" for Anyone who liked "Let Us Now Praise....".......1999-03-20
First introduced to "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" by James Agee and Walker Evans through a PBS Documentary, which inspired a dash to the library to read the book iteself, it wasn't until years later I went back to the library to see if anyone had ever followed up on the story. Confronted with the then new computerized "card catalog" system, I wondered how I might search for any related writings when it dawned on me what a perfect title would naturally evolve from the verse the first book title was taken: ..And Their Children After Them. Imagine my amazement when I tried that title, and there it was! Maharidge and Williamson have followed in Agee and Evans footsteps to give readers "the rest of the story" of the tenant farmers' families and grandchildren, as well as the stories of Agee and Evans themselves. I congratulation them on an excellent book, and offer thanks to the families and their descendants for sharing their lifestories. Their lives did not take the path predicted for them by Agee: life refuses to be harnessed by prediction. Some went farther than anyone could have anticipated, while others came to a place, if possible, even worse than expected. As a second generation American, descended from Polish and Prussian immigrants who lived comparable lives, but who were blessed to own their own land, I identified closely with these stories, from the first page of "Let Us Praise" to the last page of "And Their Children".
Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction 1991.......1997-05-02
Unfortunately, the synopsis left out that this book won the Pulitzer for Non-fiction in 1991. Maharidge and Williamson followed the footsteps of James Agee who had profiled sharecroppers during the Depression. They found their decendants, and showed that while cotton and sharecropping had died, rural poverty for these families had been passed down to new generations. The front section of the book is a series of photographs by Williamson, and they are tremendous. Moreover, in their reporting, they filled a gap left by Agee by finding a black family of sharecroppers to add to the others profiled. This is a tremendous book. It works on multiple levels, giving both the sweep of Southern social and economic history and bringing it down to individuals. Beyond that, the book is a metaphor for our own time. "If we understand the death of cotton," Maharidge writes in this book, "we understand many things about modern America." This is a tremendous work, highly readable and moving. The recognition these two craftsmen received for it is well-deserved
Book Description
Us and Them illuminates the dark corners of our nation's past and traces our ongoing efforts to live up to the American ideals of equality and justice. Fourteen case studies--enhanced through the use of original documents, historical photos, newly commissioned paintings, and dramatic narrative--bring readers a first-hand account of the history and psychology of intolerance. We read about Mary Dyer, executed for her Quaker faith in Boston in 1660. We learn how the Mormons were expelled from Missouri in 1838. The attack on Chinese miners in Wyoming in 1885, the battle of Wounded Knee in 1890, the Ku Klux Klan activities in Mobile, Alabama in 1981, and the Crown Heights riot in 1991 are among the memorable episodes presented in clear, evocative language that brings to life history that is often forgotten or slighted.
Customer Reviews:
Now is the Time to Revisit the Past.......2007-07-04
Jim Carnes explores the other side of American history. In his book, US AND THEM: A HISTORY OF INTOLERANCE IN AMERICA, Carnes introduces readers to issues in US history that are briefly expressed in textbooks. However, this book has a textbook format, but it is informative and insightful when examining the history of the United States in terms of religious, racial, and social intolerance. Although the book may be geared towards social studies and history classes, grades 5-12, or libraries, it is an effective learning tool towards setting the stage to discuss intolerance that has occurred within American history.
US AND THEM covers the most pivotal events in American history that have had a drastic affect on its people and communities. Carnes shows a birds-eye view of societal indifferences and injustices that occurred in the seventeenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century. Each of the chapters in the book are succinct and detailed, however, they leave the reader with a better perspective of events, such as the Salem Witch Trials, the debacle between Protestants and Catholics in Philadelphia in 1844, the Ghost Dance at Wounded Knee, and several other events that happened in the 1980s and 1990s pertaining to ethnic and gender issues.
The narrative and first person accounts situated within the side margins of the pages are helpful in providing the historical background of each particular event. Two essential sections, "At issue" and "The context" synthesize the facts between the myths, and the graphic illustrations within the text may invoke strong emotions and open the doors for discussion and critical analysis; undoubtedly, questions will arise on why issues such as gender, race and religion were problematic issues in history and continue to be today.
Indeed, Carnes and the preface by the late Chief Justice Harry A. Blackmun acknowledge the importance of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution and the relevance these documents have toward excluding intolerance and ignorance within society during critical periods, times of war or economic hardships. This book reiterates the importance and the understanding of laws and rights, and should be recommended reading for all ages, especially when judgments of the past are being reinterpreted and transformed.
Racists hate this stuff. .......2005-08-24
I would like to start by saying that c. page is correct in saying that this is nothing new, and niether was the ignorance in his/her review. There are hardley any new 'isms' in the world, but there are people (usually younger students) who have been brainwashed into believing that racism is something that is gone in our greater American utopia. Not so, and for those students, this book is a great way to balance out the racist ommision of textbook bias.
Regurgitated Self-loathing Diatribe .......2005-07-13
This book was a disappointment not only in its poor writing style, but all in the fact that it does not break any new ground. It is little more than a string of regurgitated self-loathing diatribes written to target an already pre-defined and well-established group of readers who scoop books up like this so that they can cite secondary sources to justify their world view. Rather than taking a balanced approach with each of the topics they addressed, these authors rush to a conclusion unsubstantiated either in fact or analysis and little true "discovery" is ever made.
I have much more respect for authors who seek to do some spade work in uncovering a new point of view, balanced and justified with deductive reasoning, not recitations of pre-packaged pabulum already in circulation in dog eared white papers written by disenfranchised college professors.
Fortunately, I bought this book used and my personal loss, other than the time I spent reading it, was minimized.
Bytes
The Face of Prejudice.......2001-07-31
In an age of sanitized history and calls for revisionism that make people feel comfortable, there is a great need for more books like Jim Carnes' history of intolerance in America. With 128 pages of text and 16 concise chapters this book corrects much of the white washing that is taking place in much longer history texts, even at the college level. Religious liberty, Native American exile, freedom from slavery, racial extermination, and ethnic tensions are highlighted with graphic images and easily accessible narratives. The trials of diverse groups such as Mormons, Catholics, Chinese, Native Americans, Jewish immigrants, Mexican Americans, Japanese citizens, and just playing Americans are dramatically highlighted in an unforgettable montage of images and words that give the lie to the "melting pot" that is the United States.
Paintings, etchings, drawings, and photographs illustrate in no uncertain terms would hate has done to this country. More than that the pictures combined with the simple prose personalizes each inequity that is introduced. For example, "A Rose for Charlie" presents photographs of the community disrupted by hate, as well as that community's response to the hate. From photographs of hate speech scrawled on walls to portraits of citizens mourning the victim of a deadly hate crime present a view of America that could not be farther from the Norman Rockwell ideal we all wish this country would be. For those interested, a fictionalized account of this particular crime can be found in "The Drowning of Stephan Jones" by Bette Greene, which chronicles the death of the young man simply because of who he loved.
It should be an essential book for all classrooms.
An important book for educators.......2001-01-17
I used this book in both my 6th and 8th grade classrooms with great success. I embarked on a diversity project using it and the video (which I strongly recommend); it's an excellent starting point because its scope is so wide and yet it gives very detailed accounts of intolerance in America, starting from the beginning (you see, we have a rather long history of intolerance). Middle school students find it interesting and easy to understand, and it's perfect for the teacher because it covers many ethnic and racial groups in the U.S.. Use this book! It's very important.
Book Description
Shows the connection between extreme cult manipulation and group pressures that can be found in any organization.
Customer Reviews:
A chillingly in-depth psychological study.......2004-02-07
Them And Us: Cult Thinking And The Terrorist Threat by Arthur J. Deikman (Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of California - San Francisco and a recognized expert on cult psychology) is a close and compelling study of human tendencies that can be (and have been) drawn into extreme variants that promote horrific human behaviors. Belittling others, clamping down on dissention, relying too heavily on an inspiring leader, are all common traits that, if embraced with no checks or balances, can readily lead to such nightmares as the loss of life at Waco or the September 11th attacks. Them And Us is commended as a particularly thought provoking, scholarly, and chillingly in-depth psychological study.
Book Description
Matching folio to this Florida alternative metal group's 2005 release with 12 tracks: Atmosphere * Begin Again * Beyond the Sun * Fake * Heroes * I Dare You * Lady So Devine * Save Me * Shed Some Light * Some Day * Trade Yourself In * Yer Majesty.
Customer Reviews:
exact.......2006-11-10
Shinedown is such a great band that I was so excited to see this book! It is exactly what I was looking for. Notes and tabs for the guitar parts (both of them), the melody line written above it...it's easy to follow and tells you exactly how to play it. This book is AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!
Amazon.com
This arresting collection of photography features work by both Helmut Newton and his wife, actress Alice Springs. Newton's coolly elegant and sexy studies are splendidly counterbalanced by Springs's warmer and more vulnerable pieces. The book is divided into three sections: two "Us" sections, in which Newton and Springs alternately photograph themselves and each other, and a final "Them" chapter that features subjects photographed differently by each photographer. The cast is a glitzy mix of Riviera-style celebrities. Catherine Deneuve is especially sultry shot by Newton, dressed in a black negligee with a cigarette dangling from her lips just below her bedroom eyes, while in the facing portrait taken by Springs, her torso is concealed within a black turtleneck and she stares confidently and directly at the camera. Karl Lagerfeld is here before he went gray, and Gianni Versace is posed not quite languidly naked on a leopard-skin sofa. The self-portraits are revealing and occasionally disturbing. Springs is often in various states of undress in front of mirrors. Newton is most often with naked models, occasionally cross-dressed, and when he is naked is oddly wired up to various types of medical equipment such as EKG machines. Aside from a very brief introduction by Newton, there is no accompanying text in the book--not even captions--but this is a book of images, not words, and nearly all these fine photographs are worth at least a thousand of them. --Nick Wroe, Amazon.co.uk
Customer Reviews:
Great Visual Autobiography.......2006-03-16
This book is a great visual autobiography into Helmut's private life. There are different sections of the book where he does have photographs of selected celeberties but the main focus of the book are photogrpahs of Helmut and his wife. Very well done edition of some B&W images.
Multidimensional Perspectives of Photography.......2001-03-21
This book has one of the most interesting premises of any photography book I have had the pleasure to examine. Spouses, Helmut Newton and Alice Springs, share their photographic perspectives of each other, themselves, and the same models. These different views echo around in your mind to help you understand the personalities, purposes, and methods of two interesting photographers. In the process, you get a better understanding of the photography itself . . . and how it changes the models in our perception. By providing images over many decades, you also get a time-lapse view of a relationship and the aging process.
Before going further, let me note that this volume contains many nude images of men and women that would be past the "R" rating if this book were a motion picture.
The book has a few brief comments by Helmut Newton to set the stage. "The book shows the work of two photographers . . . [who] have lived together for fifty years." " . . . [B]ut neither is usually present at the other's photographic sittings." " . . . [N]either one has in any way influenced the other's way of approaching their subjects." "I can see the truth and simplicity in the portraits of Alice Springs." "[She has] been an actress and a painter before she has taken up the camera seriously if somewhat sporadically." "As for myself, I recognize the manipulation and editorialising in my photographs."
Alice Springs looks for the core of the person, and captures the realities of daily life and aging very well. She shows you the joking and self-absorbed sides of Helmut Newton that help explain the stylized and challenging images that he is famous for producing. Helmut Newton obviously adds a gloss and a pose to everything, that gets his editorial position out. But it's fun in this context, much more so than in his other work. I found myself reevaluating his work after seeing these images by Alice Springs.
Here are my favorite images in the book by Alice Springs:
Of Helmut Newton -- Spain 1956; Rue Aubriot, Paris 1971; Ritz, London 1976; With Sylvia, Ramatuelle 1981; Monte-Carlo, 1987; Hollywood 1988, 1991
Of Alice Springs -- Ramatuelle, France 1975; Vail, Colorado 1996
Princess Caroline and son, Monte-Carlo 1985; Karl Lagerfeld, Monte-Carlo 1983; Rudi Gernreich, Los Angeles 1985; Tina Chow, Beverly Hills 1986; Angelica Houston, Hollywood 1983; Antonio Lopez, Paris 1977
Here are my favorite images in the book by Helmut Newton:
Of Alice Springs -- June as Hedda Gabler, Melbourne 1960; In our kitchen, Rue Aubriot, Paris 1972; Hotel Volney, New York 1982; Rue Aubriot, Paris 1974; Ramatuelle 1976
Of Helmut Newton -- Photomation, Paris 1970s; With wife and model, 1981; Clinique St. Jean, Cagnes-sur-Mer, 1997
Birgit Nielsen, Monte-Carlo 1987; Gianni Versace, Lake Como, Italy 1994; Donatella Versace, Off coast of Antibes, 1990; David Hockney, Los Angeles 1988; Peter Beard, Paris 1996
After you see this remarkable book, I suggest that you have some fun with your family. Take a day, bring a camera for each person, and make photographs of each other and the same subjects. Do this once a year to develop a better sense of your perspectives and relationships. Then comment on each other's work, and create a scrapbook or album out of this sharing. You'll have a lot of fun looking back on these images in future years.
Take a good look . . . and see more!
helmut at/with his best.......2000-06-15
Great book I been througt it a hundred times already. You will find out where he gets his great influences from! Also see junes great work, that greatly resembles his work! If you like Helmut Newton this is a must!
Book Description
They've been our closest ally for more than a century. They've brought us Shakespeare, the Beatles, Monty Python, Winston Churchill, and the Jaguar E-Type. But what do we really think of our former colonial masters? Are they a proper, literate people with quirky humor and stout beer, or a snobbish breed of has-beens with a faded empire, bad teeth, and the Spice Girls?
And what, for that matter, do the British truly think of Americans? Do they see us as the benevolent, can-do, masters of destiny we imagine ourselves to be? Or are we, in their eyes, arrogant and materialistic war mongers out to rule the world?
These are the questions that acclaimed illustrator Paul Davis set out to answer as he traveled across the United States and the UK armed with pencil, notebook, and his razor-sharp powers of observation. Us and Them, an endlessly humorous book with two fronts, is the result. On one side, you'll find his devilish caricatures of Britons, each responding to the question posed in the title. Flip it over and you'll find Americans giving their takes on the Brits. A master satirist with a firm grasp on the inanity of the human condition, Davis will have you laughing out loud and returning time and again to sample the intelligence and humor of his observations.
Average customer rating:
|
Us & them: how the press covered the 1972 election,
James M Perry
Manufacturer: C. N. Potter; distributed by Crown Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
 United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
| 19th Century
| 20th Century
| 21st Century
| African Americans
| Civil War
| Colonial Period
| General
| Revolution & Founding
| State & Local
ASIN: 0517505525 |
Average customer rating:
|
One of Us Works for Them
Jack D. Hunter
Manufacturer: Blackstone Audiobooks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette
Unabridged
| Literature & Fiction
| Books on Cassette
| Formats
| Books
Mystery
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Books on Cassette
| Formats
| Books
General
| Books on Cassette
| Formats
| Books
General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
| Classics
| Comic
| Contemporary
| Literary
General
| Mystery
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 078611133X |
Books:
- Where the Wild Things Are
- Williams Obstetrics
- Working Effectively with Legacy Code (Robert C. Martin Series)
- You Don't Love Me Yet: A Novel
- Zen and the Art of Making a Living: A Practical Guide to Creative Career Design (Arkana)
- A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
- A Man of Letters
- A Thousand Splendid Suns
- A Working Stiff's Manifesto: A Memoir of Thirty Jobs I Quit, Nine That Fired Me, and Three I Can't Remember
- Aftermath: World Trade Center Archive
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- The Writing Life: Writers on How They Think and Work : A Collection from the Washington Post Book Wo
- Star Trek: Action!
- Nothing Lasts Forever
- Myra Breckenridge/Myron
- Land Development Handbook
- Organic Chemistry
- Slaughterhouse: The Handbook of the Eastern Front
- The Papacy and the Art of Reform in Sixteenth-Century Rome: Gregory XIII's Tower of the Winds in the
- Linear Models for the Prediction of Animal Breeding Values
- A Changed Man: An Old Army Mystery
The Enabler: When Helping Hurts the Ones You Love
I'm Still Your Mother: How to Get Along with Your Grown-Up Children for the Rest of Your Life
Parenting Your Adult Child: How You Can Help Them Achieve Their Full Potential
Don't Let Your Kids Kill You: A Guide for Parents of Drug and Alcohol Addicted Children
Addict In The Family: Stories of Loss, Hope, and Recovery.
