Book Description
This book tells the fascinating story of an Athabascan-Irish family's journey from the old ways to the more modern but uncertain world of the twentieth century.
Customer Reviews:
Read this book.......2007-01-31
The other reviewers who also gave it 5 stars said it the best. I'm just adding my emphasis that you should read this book. It was inspiring and just a very memorable and eye-opening story of native people growing up in the "white man's" world. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Memorable.......2002-05-30
A proud but impoverished Alaskan Indian family struggling to move into modern white society from its ancient culture filled with spirits -- deeply moving, humorous, tragic, yet inspirational.
A cultural snapshot of an Interior Alaskan family........2001-07-11
An informative and important ethnographic work giving a glimpse of one family's life experiences in interior Alaska. A story well crafted and researched by one of the descendants of an Athabascan/Irish family filled with the realities of the sometimes harsh aspects of life in the north but yet also filled with the joys of living with strands of hope. It demonstrates how people cope with the clashing of cultures and how people on another level recreate their identity with one foot in the past (belief in Cold River Spirits) and one in the present. This book is highly recommended as a prime example of how to do ethnography. At times an air of expectancy is created and much like Louise, a central character in the family story, we get a sense of what's to come. It was story told with candor and helps to give us a snapshot of the cultural landscape of her people.
Best book since TWO OLD WOMEN.......2001-01-04
COLD RIVER SPIRITS is a wonderful and welcome addition to my library. Jan Harper-Haines writes with wisdom and humor. She tells the story of her family with candor, helping readers appreciate the challenge of living in two cultures. The book is a fast read; I couldn't put it down. As a result, I gave several copies as holiday gifts to friends and family. COLD RIVER SPIRITS deserves five stars.
Cold River Spirits.......2000-12-05
I absorbed Cold River Spirits in a flurry of intense reading. Once the book was opened, I could not put it down. The stories were compelling and engaging, full of warmth, amusement, charm, sorrow, and tragedy. I was drawn into the lives of this Alaska Native family and rejoiced in their triumphs and commiserated in their troubles. The icon of the family, Louise, embodied the power, strength and wisdom of the Alaska Native woman. Louise's thoroughly modern daughter, Flora Jane, determined, bright, and plucky, became the first Alaska Native, man or woman, to graduate from the University of Alaska! These real life stories reflect the difficulties and challenges of the Alaska Native people as it has in more recent times interfaced with the pervasive and dominant white culture. But Cold River Spirits is not just an ethnological family history; it has much broader appeal, for it crosses cultural and racial lines, and the reader senses the deeper message of the themes of humanity that unify us all.
Book Description
This book explains the roots, politics, and legacy of Korean ethnic nationalism, which is based on the sense of a shared bloodline and ancestry. Belief in a racially distinct and ethnically homogeneous nation is widely shared on both sides of the Korean peninsula, although some scholars believe it is a myth with little historical basis. Finding both positions problematic and treating identity formation as a social and historical construct that has crucial behavioral consequences, this book examines how such a blood-based notion has become a dominant source of Korean identity, overriding other forms of identity in the modern era. It also looks at how the politics of national identity have played out in various contexts in Korea: semicolonialism, civil war, authoritarian politics, democratization, territorial division, and globalization.
Customer Reviews:
Descriptively analyzing the separation and differences in the communist north and democratic south of the Korean peninsula.......2006-06-06
Ethnic Nationalism: Genealogy, Politics, And Legacy by Gi-Wook Shin (Director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center) explores the roots, politics, and legacy of Korean ethnic nationalism. Descriptively analyzing the separation and differences in the communist north and democratic south of the Korean peninsula, Ethnic Nationalism addresses the general identity formation of the two Koreas. A core addition to academic library International Studies reference collections, Ethnic Nationalism is strongly recommended to the attention of political science, sociology, and cultural anthropology students studying the contrasts and similarities of North and South Korea through their collective history of anti-colonialism, civil war, authoritarian politics, democratization, territorial division, and globalization.
Book Description
An unprecedented chronicle of America's bitter war against Japanese imperialism a half-century ago that interweaves poignant first-person memories with unique color photography of the major battle sites paired with evocative archival images.
This fascinating, richly illustrated survey of all aspects of the Pacific war, from Pearl Harbor to Japan's surrender in Tokyo Bay, presents something unique among World War II histories: an extensive color portfolio of dramatic wartime relics surviving decades on most of the Pacific island battlefields. Rusting American landing craft and tanks still can be found on treacherous reefs and beaches where they were tragically stopped by enemy fire so long ago, aircraft of both sides lie hidden in the jungles where they crashed, battle-scarred Japanese pillboxes and artillery emplacements still stand sentinel, and packed-coral landing strips remain as good as new. All such evocative memento mori have been beautifully captured by Jerry Meehl, probably the only photographer to have sought out all these far-flung battle sites, many of them still dangerous underfoot and now off limits to travelers. The authors also searched official archives for pictures that really show the terrors of combat, and often these display the very tanks and amtracs now decomposing on distant invasion beaches. They also found captured prewar photos of Japanese pillboxes and gun emplacements as newly built, and contrast them with their current, war-torn condition.
But this is far from just a "then" and "now" picture book. Each of the more than twenty photo essays of particular battles features a lively narrative that relies heavily on the firsthand accounts of men who were there, archival pictures shot during the actual fighting, and color photographs of the remaining Japanese bunkers and gun emplacements all of which help the reader visualize what hand-to-hand combat in the Pacific war was really like.
Other details: 500 illustrations, 250 in full color
Customer Reviews:
Fascinating Book.......2003-01-16
I've read a lot of books about the Pacific war, but this one is definitely my favorite.
Rex Alan Smith served 36 months as an Army Engineer in the Pacific. Since then, he has traveled extensively, visiting and talking with other veterans of the Pacific war. Gerald Meehl has spent years combing the Pacific and photographing the places which played important roles in WWII in the Pacific: places such as Pearl Harbor, Wake Island, Bataan, Corregidor, Guadalcanal, Tulagi, Munda, Tarawa, Guam, Saipan, Tinian, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, Okinawa; along with lesser-known, but exotic outposts, such as Bora Bora and Pago Pago.
What emerges from their work is a series of more than 20 essays on individual battles, in the order in which they occurred, from the attack on Pearl Harbor to the final surrender at Tokyo Bay. The essays begin with explanations of why the battles were fought, and what strategies were employed. Aerial photographs give you an overall view of the operation. First-hand accounts by the men who fought there give you a chilling sense of what it was like to charge up the beach in the face of withering enemy fire. There are hundreds of photographs - about half in black and white, which were taken during the actual fighting; and half in color, taken by Mr. Meehl some years later, often of the same scenes. The color photographs are beautiful and haunting. You'll see the rusting hulk of an abandoned tank, or the crumbling rubble of a bombed-out pillbox, surrounded by sparkling white beaches with swaying palms, crystal clear ocean waters, and blue skies with fluffy white clouds.
In his introduction to the book, Joe Foss, Medal of Honor winner at Guadalcanal, says, "We could not cover every campaign in detail, nor was it our purpose to present a comprehensive history of the Pacific war. Rather, we tried to create for the reader, while the veterans themselves can recall it, what that war was like--how it looked and felt and smelled--and to examine the legacy today of a war so fiercely fought on faraway Pacific Islands."
Customer Reviews:
Three and a half stars..........2007-05-21
In the summer of 1865, the sidewheeler S.S. Brother Jonathan sunk off the coast of northern California when it hit an uncharted reef. Dennis Powers chronicles the long search for the sunken vessel and its treasure in Treasure Ship.
The loss of the Brother Jonathan is considered to be "the nation's greatest peacetime shipwreck on our Western shores." Bodies and debris washed up along 125 miles of coast for several weeks. Only 19 passengers survived out of 244 on board, and eyewitnesses differed on the location. At the time of the sinking, the Brother Jonathan carried several large boxes of currency, along with lots of gold--including coins and bars (worth approximately one half million dollars in 1865). In Treasure Ship, Powers gives exhaustive details about various aspects of this story including the background of the ship, the California Gold Rush, the history of sailing on the west coast, a short lesson on numismatics, as well as repeated tries to discover the exact location of the vessel as well as efforts to recover her treasure. The search teams met a number of major obstacles including lack of financing, the state of California and a punishing Pacific Ocean reluctant to give up any secrets. It makes for an interesting story.
Unfortunately, Mr. Powers tended to get bogged down with minutiae. On a number of occasions, he gives us more information than was really needed for this story. At one point, he tells us that Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln were married in the home of Anson G. Henry. Actually, that wedding took place in the home of Ninian Edwards. It makes you wonder what other research might be incorrect. Also, while Powers includes a good number of photographs, it would have been most helpful if he had included a map of Crescent City and the California coast.
Despite some problems, Treasure Ship is very informative and I enjoyed reading about the Brother Jonathan and the efforts to retrieve her treasure.
Plodding.......2007-04-05
As both a wreck diver and an historian, I'm usually a sucker for books like these - it's really hard to make a book about sunken treasure boring but Dennis Powers has a good go at it.
I know there are several very positive customer reviews but it's interesting to look at the Publishers Reviews above; they're nearly all from people who were part of the recovery team so just shows how hard they were having to look to find positive comments.
The first quarter of the book which deals with the shipwreck is interesting and well written but the rest of it...way more than you'll ever want to know about lawyers, California's state regulations, auction procedures, coin controversies etc.
Part of the problem for the author may be that it's not really a very exciting story in some aspects; the ship sunk, nobody could find it, then they did, recovered a bit of gold....that's it. It's not a 400 page book, if they'd cut 50 pages maybe it would have been better.
The legend of the fabled ship SS Brother Jonathan.......2007-03-03
Reviewed by Richard R. Blake for Reader Views (3/07)
"Treasure Ship" is the story behind the story of the legend of the S.S. Brother Jonathan. The story is written in three parts. Part one establishes the background and history of this fabled ship from the date of it's launching in 1850. Information was extracted by tracing the ownership and history of the ship from the ship's logs. Powers details the many ownership changes, the ship's transport utilization, near disasters, and the excitement of the California gold rush.
Part two establishes background information on the survivors, the search for the "Brother Jonathan" over a time period of over 150 years. Powers also introduces a glimpse into the subjects of Numismatics, deep sea research, and the community within Crescent City, California.
Part three outlines the disputes among the investors, their personalities, management styles, and the conflict between exploration strategies, their ideals and their motivation. Divers, salvage groups, and investors are drawn into the search for sunken treasures for many reasons including, the mystique, excitement, risk, and romance of the adventure. Many are driven by avarice, others by a desire to conserve and restore these priceless artifacts for posterity. These chapters include government intervention, legal battles, and a Supreme Court decision.
Powers has created an ongoing saga of colorful characters, scoundrels, egoists, and over-zealous bureaucrats. These characters move his narrative forward. Within two weeks of the disaster and devastation, a search for the battered ship had begun. These stories within a story give insight into the historical setting of the various eras as the explorations and discoveries were attempted.
The book is informational in the areas of shipbuilding and the sea worthiness of shipping vessels, Numismatics, legal implications of sunken treasures, the acquisition and ultimate disposition of these artifacts, coins, and gold bars.
Powers has researched and documented his work well and included an event timeline, selected references and a complete index. Powers has a flare for journalism. His writing style is colorful, detailed, dramatic, and informational.
"Treasure Ship" is destined to become the definitive work on the legend and legacy of the S. S. Brother Jonathan.
Unique combination of history, business and law.......2007-01-03
I truly enjoyed this book. I find nonfiction far more captivating and dramatic than fiction. Dennis did an outstanding job of bringing out all aspects of this story (I can't imagine anyone making up a story this good). He takes us on a journey from the ship leaving San Francisco to it's wreck followed by the more incredible story of finding the wreck, going to the supreme court over the legal issues, fighting over the issues about rare coins and finally to helping us see the business end of treasure hunting.
Once I was half way through the book I couldn't put it down!
Two Thumbs Up.......2006-11-12
Having previously read "Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea" by Gary Kinder, and "Lost Gold of the Republic" by Priit J. Vesilind, I thought someone would eventually write a similar book about the SS Brother Jonathan. What I didn't expect was just how good Dennis Powers's book would be. If you are a collector of gold double eagles or Civil War gold in general, then I highly recommend all three of these books. If you enjoy history, or shipwrecks, or just a good non-fiction read, then I recommend this book above the others.
I am a fan of history books that read like a good novel. Dennis Powers's "Treasure Ship" doesn't just document events, it makes you feel you are right there witnessing the events.
I would be surprised if this book doesn't get made into a movie, or at least, a History Channel special.
Average customer rating:
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Pacific Legacy
Wayne Bonnett
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ASIN: 0811800237 |
Customer Reviews:
Call of The Mountains is a beautiful book.............2006-11-06
Olander's book is a fantastic coffee table book and at the same time a tour guide and history book. I thoroughly enjoy this book each time I open it- which is often. I have often explored and hiked these mountains and have visited many if not most of the places shown in Ms. Olanders' book. It has motivated me to seek out places I haven't been and to re-visit others with new knowledge and history guiding me. I highly recommend this book to all who enjoy nature.
Beautiful.......2006-07-31
This book is filled with both stunning photography and graceful prose. Call of the Mountains spans an 18 month period in which the Olanders explored their local mountain ranges. It chronicles the people that they meet along the way and the stories that the ancient mountains hold. The book concludes with the desire that these treasured mountains be preserved for future generations.
Great Pictures, nice read.......2006-03-21
A well composed photographic book. One of few books of it's kind which highlights Southern California's ever present but, often over-looked mountain ranges. If you have never visited your local mountains, this book will make you want to.
The Perfect Coffee Table Book .......2005-12-02
Thank you Ann and Farley Olander. My husband and I have always enjoyed the mountains, and the San Gabriel Mountains hold a special place in our hearts. It is so nice seeing California mountains so lushly photographed with important prose. Our friends pick it up to look at the photos, but always end up reading it as well. It is truly an inspired partnership that created this work or art.
Do not categorize this book as simply another coffee table book!.......2005-11-23
This is much more than a book with great pictures. Ann & Farley Olander show the rest of us how we can enjoy the quiet beauty and simple pleasures of the wilderness next door. Unassuming and inspiring, this book is a roadmap for nature lovers and urbanites alike.
It is truly a collection of quiet visual poetry that rhymes with wilderness.
Benoit & Kathryn Gendron, New York City
Book Description
As Spanish authorities colonized Alta California, they established twenty-one Franciscan missions and four forts, or presidios, to bring the native inhabitants of the region under control and to provide for security and defense. Today, the missions and presidios are among California's most popular historic landmarks, and enduring reminders of California's Spanish and Mexican past. This guidebook is a fun and fascinating tour of the missions and presidios for vacationers and history buffs alike.
Book Description
Upton Sinclair came to California after the success of his ground-breaking exposure of the slaughterhouse industry in his 1906 novel The Jungle. During the next fifty years, he served as a board member for the American Civil Liberties Union, wrote countless novels, campaigned for food reform, railed against fascism, and was resoundly criticized by the Los Angeles Times. One of his most famous writings was the slogan for his memorable campaign for governor: "End Poverty in California." Naturally, Sinclair turned his campaign trail experiences into yet another book.
In The Land of Orange Groves and Jails, Lauren Coodley draws on a variety of Sinclair `s writings to show his impressions of California, his political awakening, and the development of popular culture. His interest in the dilemma of the worker and the American with a social conscience is evident in the title piece and throughout the collection.
Customer Reviews:
Amazing that this work is well reviewed....................2007-07-31
Coodley deserves kudos for reminding us of the importance of U. Sinclair. He was a great and somewhat forgotten person. However; there are are few things about this work that merit critical examination. #1: There is hardly any sense of the greater or "big" picture. The Roosevelt (FDR) administration was not happy that Sinclair ran for governor of California. In FDR's attempt to save the US and capitalism by moving things slightly to the left there was little room for Socialist governors in the Golden State. #2: The writing is turgid and cliche' ridden. #3: In the forward Coodley herself basically admits that she picked the brains of others at Sinclair re-unions and seminars. So, is this book good history or self promotion?
An unusual perspective on Sinclair's politics and life.......2005-05-12
Novelist/political commentator Upton Sinclair may best be known for his flaming critiques of the Chicago meatpacking industry in "The Jungle"; but he's equally notorious in California for his harsh critiques of Southern California's culture and excesses. Land Of Orange Groves And Jails: Upton Sinclair's California assembles fifty years of these writings: plays, articles and essays demonstrate his political activism and his controversial impressions of the area. While Sinclair students will be the likely audience for this assembly, Southern California residents and students of literature alike will relish the unusual perspective on Sinclair's politics and life.
Book Description
The remarkable photographs in Peoples of the Plateau capture the lives of Pacific Northwest Indians at the turn of the twentieth century--and at a turning point in their own history.
The Columbia River Plateau, in the interior Pacific Northwest, was populated for centuries by the Umatilla, Walla Walla, and Cayuse Indians. By the late nineteenth century, after the U.S. government had confined these peoples to a single reservation, their lives began to change irrevocably. Major Lee Moorhouse, a businessman and former militia officer, served as an Indian agent during this period. Believing that the Indians he encountered were a "dying race," Moorhouse was driven to collect their artifacts and, for posterity, take their photographs.
Although he was not a professional photographer, Moorhouse produced more than 9,000 glass-plate negatives, one-third with Indians as his subjects. Although his works to some degree reflect a stereotypical view, they are an invaluable aid for tribal researchers and historians because they identify their subjects by name.
This book marks the first major examination of Moorhouse and his work. Featuring eighty exquisite plates, it not only showcases Moorhouse's extensive photographs but also tells the story of the man--about whom little is known--and of the world in which he lived and worked.
Book Description
On the Home Front is the only comprehensive history of the Hanford Nuclear Site, America's most notorious plutonium production facility. Located in southeastern Washington State, the Hanford Site produced most of the plutonium used in the atomic bombs that effectively ended World War II. This book was made possible by the declassification in the 1980s of tens of thousands of government documents relating to the construction, operation, and maintenance of the site. In a new epilogue, Michele Stenehjem Gerber provides a detailed history and commentary on the first twelve years of the Hanford cleanup project—the largest waste cleanup program in world history.
Customer Reviews:
Story Lost in the Details.......2004-10-28
I grew up in Richland and went to Hanford High School during the Reagan/Bush years. I found her book interesting, but it seemed to lack the details I was trying to learn more about, primarily the role of HEAL and other citizen action groups to promote more honesty about the dangers of plutonium production. Growing up around "the Area" I found not a lot of awareness about these issues and even found myself avoiding them for the last twenty years of my life! Her book brought back to me the mindset of the area that allows that kind of cloud. She gives only one or two sentences each for HEAL and the Downwinders, without whose work she would not have had the material for her book. None at all to the incredible journalism of Steele at the Spokesman Review and no mention of the whistle blower Casey Ruud. I found that lapse pretty typical of Hanfordization. I remember my Physics teacher telling our class that automobile engines were more dangerous than spent uranium fuel which could be used to power everything in the future. I guess he didn't really consider the use of dirty bombs, <sigh> . . . I found the book Atomic Harvest more informative.
Informative, interesting, and a good digest..........2001-08-21
Dr. Gerber reduced the thousands of documents, memos, and misc data declassified reguarding the Hanford Area and the surrounding region from the very beginning of the Manhattan Project. Having lived there for a majority of my life in what was once the "Richland Village" and going to a high school with a mascot of the Bombers, this book was particularly interesting to me. It also allowed me to carry intelligent conversation with my grandfather (who worked there from the 50's till the 80's). Highly technical in parts but with some explaination, I reccommend you read a bit about radioactivity and geology to assist your understanding of the content.
Books:
- Cooking from Quilt Country : Hearty Recipes from Amish and Mennonite Kitchens
- Devil's Playground
- Digital Video for Beginners: A Step-by-Step Guide to Making Great Home Movies (Lark Photography Book)
- Digital Wedding Photography: Capturing Beautiful Memories
- Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition
- Dreamweaver 8: The Missing Manual
- Drive Time: Spanish (CD): Learn Spanish While You Drive (LL(R) All-Audio Courses)
- DVD Demystified Third Edition
- Edge Chronicles 8: The Winter Knights (Edge Chronicles, The)
- Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs
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