History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)

Book Description

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

Customer Reviews:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

Flocabulary: The Hip-Hop Approach to U.S. History (Flocabulary Study Guides)

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Great Teaching Tool
Great Tool

Flocabulary: The Hip-Hop Approach to U.S. History (Flocabulary Study Guides)
Blake Harrison , and Alexander Rappaport
Manufacturer: Cider Mill Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1933662352

Book Description

Flocabulary has taken the educational world by storm. It’s a dynamic new tool for teaching and learning. Now teens can hip-hop their way to history success!
Featuring an audio CD with 45 minutes of original, educational, and cutting-edge music, this latest entry in the innovative Flocabulary series turns U.S. history—from pre-Colonial days through World War II—into an enjoyable experience. No more yawning through lists of dull, dry dates: this effective and engaging combination of rhythm and rhyme makes remembering the basic curriculum as easy as apple pie. The topics range from the first meeting between the Native Americans and the European explorers to the Seeds of Revolution (“Taxin’ and Representin’”), from Lincoln and the Civil War to the Industrial Revolution, from the Great Depression to Bombs Over Berlin. It’s perfect for any student preparing for the AP placement test or the SAT II.

Customer Reviews:

Great Teaching Tool.......2007-04-14

Not since "School House Rocks" has a teaching tool been so useful in reaching history students across America. As a teacher, I have used the "Hip-Hop Approach to U.S. History" with great success and educational outcomes. The CD is a great supplement to the history curriculum, with a different perspective of historical events that is not usually found in our current history books. Catchy, historically critical, and very easy to use, this book and CD will enhance any student's insight into U.S. history. Listen to O.D.W.M. to get a good sense of what Flocabulary is all about.

Great Tool.......2007-01-21

What a great tool. While I don't expect the songs to ever make it to the American Top 40 they are adequate and have a good beat. They have actually made it fun (or dare I say easy) to learn history!

As Serious As Your Life: John Coltrane and Beyond (Five Star)

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Missing The Point
Arrogant and self-righteous
Interesting relatively early book on this topic
As Serious As Your Life
the avant garde strikes back

As Serious As Your Life: John Coltrane and Beyond (Five Star)
Valerie Wilmer
Manufacturer: Serpent's Tail
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1852427302

Customer Reviews:

Missing The Point.......2005-07-08

I think that the previous reviewers have really missed the point of Wilmer's book. The fact that Wilmer is criticized by the reviewers for heralding free jazz above all other types of jazz seems ludicrous to me. After all, she did write an entire book on the subject because of her love for the music. She's not writing a book on ALL jazz, just one particular type. One should not expect her to be completely objective to the subject. To say that other music journalists write/wrote objectively about the music that they love is a completely silly notion. Did Lester Bangs write objectively about rock n' roll? NO! And there is really no reason that he should have. However, that being said, there is plenty of criticism of the music that Wilmer points out in "As Serious As Your Life." Criticism such as the weakness of later Albert Ayler recordings or the derivative style of Frank Lowe's tenor playing, etc. is pointed out throughout the book. Every writer has a slant and Wilmer definitely has one when it comes to "the great Black music." But this should not be held against her.
I think that what these other reviewers also have failed to understand, is that "As Serious As Your Life," is not just about the music, about free jazz...it is about the politics behind the music, hence the focus on black musicians playing "The Great Black Music." The focus here really is on the black musicians that played free jazz in the mid-60's through the late 70's. In Wilmer's eyes, this music corresponded directly with the Civil Rights movement of the time and was born out of black musician's search for "freedom" even if it was only through music. Wilmer paints a vivid picture of most of the major musician's ideals and philosophies and her words will have you wanting to run to the record store to hear the musical manifestations of these thoughts and feelings. Really, no stone is left unturned when dealing with The Great Black Music and that is one reason why this book is indispensable for fans of the avant-garde as it pertains to jazz music.
Finally, the reader must understand that this is NOT a definitive history of jazz, or even free jazz, for that matter. It is but one person's interpretation of the music. There are plenty of other sources on the subject and in order to fully understand the music these should also be consulted. But all in all "As Serious As Your Life" is a great read and very much worth your time. Just remember, it's not the ONLY thing out there.

Arrogant and self-righteous.......2004-03-03

Look, don't get me wrong. I love the music Wilmer talks about in this book as much as she does. My gripe is NOT with the music, nor with the love of it. My gripe is with her writing style.

To say that she is a self-righteous suck-up is probably understating the situation. For example, she lambasts Tony Williams for "playing in time" - apparently a sin of all sins as it does not correspond to her definition of free jazz (which in this book is synonymous with "worthwhile music").

Her rants about more traditional styles, about fusion, about...well...every other style of music becomes very tedious. Her inability to objectively discuss free jazz becomes frustrating. I really wanted to like this book, having heard great things about it, but I just found myself hating fans of the avant-garde (which meant self-loathing, oddly enough).

The book presents what I view to be the biggest problem in music - the ferocious desire of the mainstream to quarantine avant-garde music from everything else, and the equally ferocious desire of avant-garde music to maintain the quarantine (lest they sell out) whilst whining about being separate. Give me a break.

Good music is good music - it can be found anywhere, in spite of what Wilmer might say.

Interesting relatively early book on this topic.......2004-02-18

I was thrilled to find this book. It was originally published in 1977. Articles on Free Jazz from the Sixties cover the original explosion and controversy, but this book was written after the flourishing of many resulting waves. It was interesting to read a book written at this time, since the 1970's was the decade in which free jazz really flourished into its own. The foundation had been laid by Coltrane, Ornette, Ayler, Sun Ra, Abrams, Cecil Taylor etc. This book covers all those people and more, and deals with their music as well as their influence on and positions in relation to the dominant culture.
I give it five stars just because it is a vintage document that is very in-depth and covers the spiritual and personal aspects of the music.
For a more musicological text (musical examples and all), see Ekkhart Jost's "Free Jazz."

As Serious As Your Life.......2003-03-21

Val Wilmer presents a complete ignorant and biased review of the life of many key figures in the jazz movement. Her writing is more akin to a groupie trying to "suck-up" to her favorite group. With her "band chick" approach and total lack of knowledge about music, Wilmer manages to string along several stories about these musicians, in which each experience becomes granite evidence of the validity of their approach to music as welll as proof of Wilmer's superior knowledge of Jazz and music in general.
PLease!!!! Wilmer loves this music because it dispenses with such unnnecessary items as Harmony, Melody, Time, and general ability on the given instrument..making it a music analyzed only in superlatives.
Some of the information on Ed Blackwell is informative - but she manages to contradict herself on many occasions. For example...Tony Williams, in Wilmer's opinion is no longer important because he still plays time which in her opinion is useless. However, five stars for Ed Blackwell...come on Wilmer, he played more traditionally than Tony Williams ever did.
For fans of Jazz and so-called free jazz - spare yourselves the Wilmer - "I am in love with these sexy Black Musicians" approach. Poor.

the avant garde strikes back.......2000-06-16

Wilmer's As Serious as Your Life stands, along with her own earlier Jazz People and books by Amiri Baraka (Blues People) and Ben Sidran (Black Talk) as one of the most important books on the controversial avant-garde jazz of the 1960's and early 1970's. Originally published in 1977, it is a fascinating and highly informed study that benefits from the race and gender politics in the air at the time without ever laboring to use this theoretical baggage in the service of the author's ideological purposes-the music and, more importantly, the musicians are always carefully kept in the spotlight. Starting with individual chapters on important and influential figures such as John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, and Albert Ayler, and including many other names both famous and unknown, the author draws on her first-hand knowledge of the musicians to construct insightful portraits of a people literally under siege by hostile critics and even by other less "political" musicians. She further develops her ideas in the thematic units which follow, including a section dedicated to percussionists like Sonny Murray and Ed Blackwell whose contributions to the music often went unacknowledged, and one dedicated to the women of the movement (most famously John Coltrane's wife Alice), both as sources of emotional support and, thankfully, as musicians in their own right. The result is a book which not only sheds light on the music but also illuminates its sociopolitical background. In the final unit, "The Conspiracy and Some Solutions," the author deals more directly with these problematic political issues, which are perhaps even more relevant today than when this book was first published: the place of jazz in the world of academia, the role of the media in the promotion of jazz, etc. Personal but professional, and humanized by a section of the author's photographs of the musicians, this book is an enjoyable "must" for the music of this period, and one of the rare books of jazz criticism that encourage the reader both to listen more and to read more. Although for this new edition a brief chapter bringing the book up to date would have been appreciated (or at least an updated bibliography), the list of musicians in the acknowledgements who have passed away since the last edition is a sad and sobering reminder of the of the lack of esteem afforded this generation of jazz even today.

Lost Delta Found: Rediscovering the Fisk University-Library of Congress Coahoma County Study, 1941-1942

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Revisionist scholars
Lost Delta Assassinated
Essential!
Essential Reading
Crucial for anyone dealing with race, with blues, with Lomax

Lost Delta Found: Rediscovering the Fisk University-Library of Congress Coahoma County Study, 1941-1942
John W. Work , Lewis Wade Jones , and Samuel C. Adams Jr.
Manufacturer: Vanderbilt University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0826514855

Book Description

Book contains 160 song transcriptionsThis book brings to print for the first time the writings and research of three African American scholars from Fisk University who participated in a 1940s study of the culture and music in the Mississippi Delta. Until these long-lost documents surfaced recently, the perspective of white folklorist Alan Lomax represented all that was known of this important project and its findings.

Customer Reviews:

Revisionist scholars.......2006-02-07

Revisionist scholarship is red hot, and no one, it seems, can escape its flame. All great men and women of the past, and especially liberal icons such as Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and Martin Luther King are charred, act by act, word by word, until only the ashes are left. In the music field, there are similar targets, with Woody Guthrie and Alan Lomax tied high on the burning stake. One can only wonder (but not for long, their faces and grimaces are so very familiar to us) who is behind the systematic rewriting of cultural history of which this book is a prime example.

Lost Delta Assassinated.......2006-01-07

An edition of the writings of the joint Fisk University-Library of Congress Cohahoma project undertaken in the 1940s is long overdue and would have been most welcome. Unfortunately, Lost Delta Found is sloppily and tendentiously edited. Most disgracefully, Robert Gordon and Bruce Nemerov, themselves white, create a highly biased, falsified frame for the valuable writings they present by means of omission of key information, selective quotations, and bogus insinuations of romanticism and racism against Alan Lomax that pervade their editorial apparatus. They fail to duly credit Lomax with courage in initiating an unprecidented bi-racial study of a hotbed of racial discontent in the heart of Mississippi Delta plantation country in the 1941-42 Jim Crow South. They omit mention of the fact that Lomax and his wife were arrested and briefly jailed for fraternizing with black sharecroppers. They also don't mention that the Dixiecrat US congress cut out all arts funding in spring of 1942 while the study was going on, specifically prohibiting federal arts workers from collecting statistical information and and making field recordings of folk songs. It is to be hoped that some day a fair and factually accurate edition of the Coahoma Project materials will appear - one that reproduces all the relevant historical documentation. Tragically, the publication of this book may prevent that from happening.

Claim [in Lost Delta Found]: The Coahoma study was composer John Work's idea and was appropriated by Alan Lomax and the Library of Congress.

Fact: In 1940, Fisk Professor John Work proposed a study of ballad origins after a disastrous fire in Natchez, Mississippi. The grant application to fund it (written by Fisk President Thomas Johnson, not John Work, to a foundation in New York) was turned down. A year later, during a visit by Lomax to present a concert at Fisk, President Johnson, Sociologist Charles S. Johnson, and Lomax proposed a different, joint Fisk-Library of Congress field recording project, centered in Clarksdale (in Coahoma), using sociology students to gather data. Alan Lomax wrote the application and questionnaire for the study. Gordon and Nemerov supply no evidence that Lomax knew of Work's earlier Natchez fire proposal much less "stole" it. (Funds for the Coahoma study came from Charles Seeger's Pan American Union, under the War Department - information they omit).

Claim: The Land Where the Blues Began is Alan Lomax's version of the Coahoma Study.

Fact: Land Where the Blues Began, a memoir written in 1993, when Lomax was in his seventies, covers Lomax's field recording experience from 1933 through the 1970s.

Claim: In Land Where the Blues Began, Alan Lomax slighted the contributions of his African-American collaborators on the Coahoma Study -- Lewis Jones, Samuel Adams, and John Work.

Fact: Alan Lomax thanked and mentioned them (especially Lewis Jones) over 18 times and at considerable length, including in the formal acknowledgements of Land Where the Blues Began.

Claim [In Lost Delta Found]: Alan Lomax was not a Southerner and therefore had "romantic ideas" about the South.

Fact: Alan Lomax was a Southerner and a life-long champion of civil rights. The editors of Lost Delta Found smear his character (there are over 70 mentions of Lomax in the introductions and index, all derogatory) when they insinuate that he was a crypto-racist and "romantic' who did not acknowledge his black co-workers (when in fact he did so over and over). They also don't mention the fact that Lomax and Lewis Jones collaborated again in the early 1960s.

Claim: [In Lost Delta Found] Alan Lomax's Land Where the Blues Began has many inaccuracies "the most important of which" was his omission of mention of the August, 1941, preliminary Coahoma trip undertaken by Lomax and Work.

Fact: Lomax's omission of the 1941 preliminary trip in the Coahoma study is arguably a narrative expedient, not an error. No other "inaccuracy" in Land Where the Blues Began is identified. That all of Lomax's Library of Congress Coahoma recordings are, and have always been, acurately dated, with full and proper credit to participants (including Work) is not acknowledged by Gordon and Nemerov.

Claim [in Lost Delta Found]: Lomax ought to have edited the Coahoma study after leaving the employ of the Library of Congress.

Fact: The study was interrupted by US entrance into World War II. Alan Lomax's ethical obligation to the study ended after he left the Library in 1942 to join the army.

Claim: After the war, Alan Lomax and the Library of Congress suppressed the results of the Coahoma study when they lost or "filed away" the one extant manuscript of John Work's essay about the project.

Fact: Letters in the Library of Congress state that in 1943 the Library sent John Work multiple copies of his unfinished Coahoma manuscript drafts (along with mimeographed copies) after he wrote that he himself had lost them. After 1945, study participants had permission from Fisk and the Library to use the Coahoma material in their own writings. Lewis Jones used the material in completing his sociology degree; and in December, 1947, participant Samuel Adams published an article (albeit brief) about his Coahoma work in 'Social Forces' (pp. 202-205). In 1958, John Work wrote to the Library of Congress asking for permission to write a book based his Coahoma essay and received a go-ahead. He did not mention that his manuscript was "lost" at that time, suggesting that at that time he possessed copies of his own writings. None of this information, all on public record and available to any diligent researcher, appears in Lost Delta Found.

Claim [made by a reviewer]: Alan Lomax's black colleagues urged him to record newer, gospel music rather than older call-and-response spirituals.

Fact: The only "evidence" for this is Robert Gordon's highly implausible suggestion in Lost Delta Found that John Work's classified index of 68 spirituals collected during the Coahoma project constitutes a coded "hidden message" (a' la Leo Strauss) criticizing the emphasis on collecting spirituals. It especially strains credulity, since Work himself was a noted enthusiast of (nearly extinct) black string band and sacred harp music.(There is little point in collecting material that is widely commercially available.)

Claim [in Lost Delta Found]: John Work "anticipated the blues as poetry movement by ten years."
Fact: Harlem renaissance writers Sterling Brown, James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, and Alain Locke championed blues as poetry ten years *before* John Work.

Essential!.......2005-12-04

This book takes a critical, but not cruel, look at Alan Lomax's scholarly work in recording some of the black music of the south. Lomax, in his celebrated treatise on his travels in the South, mostly neglected to mention his research associates, black scholars from Fisk University in Nashville.

Lomax's focus of the research trip described in this book was to find old black spirituals and work songs, which, of course, weren't really being sung any more, with black culture moving further toward modern gospel music. Lomax, despite the urgings of his colleagues, was looking for something that no longer existed. However, far from villainizing Lomax, the authors of this book celebrate his victories and hail him as the true American hero that he is, while also bringing to light another pair of American heroes, Lomax's black guides.

The book is well-written and easy to read, not overly scholarly, and most anyone with any interest in blues, gospel, delta music, American black music, American folklore, African-American culture and American traditional music in general will enjoy this book and find themselves using it as a crucial reference.

Essential Reading.......2005-08-29

Lost research found, beautifully presented and edited, with hundreds of transcriptions of songs from Coahoma County in the 40's by John Work, the African-American researcher who assisted Alan Lomax in the recording of Muddy Waters' first recordings.

While the media has focused on the "scandal" that Alan Lomax slighted the contributions of his Afircan-American colleagues, like John Work, those of us who are familiar with the history of Delta Blues scholarship already knew that while, at the same time, acknowledging the truly great work Lomax did.The real value here, and the value is immense, is in the wealth of detail about black Coahoma culture.

Jukeboxes are catlogued,with numbers of plays per song in some cases. Obscure statistical studies are mentioned and summarized that clarify the nature of the milieu in which Muddy, Son House, etc etc, worked, drank, sang, played. And all those unknown songs!

Don't even think about not buying this book.

Crucial for anyone dealing with race, with blues, with Lomax.......2005-08-24

Nemerov and Gordon have done an immense service to the scholarship of blues, to the scholarship of race in scholarship itself, to the understanding of Black music. This book helps us understand rather than the beneficient and hallowed benefactors of African Americans he liked to picture himself, Alan Lomax perpetuated the same racism and paternalism that has been a halmark of white scholarship of African Americans since this country began.

The trips to Mississippi in the 1940s that Lomax made were supposed to be part of a joint project between between Lomax's team at the Library of Congress and a team of Black scholars at Fisk University led by the great John W. Work III, one of the greatest African American folklorists, the musical director of the Fisk Jubilee singers, and one of the major Black intellectuals of his period. The lure of Lomax to the Fisk scholars was that he was supposed to lend resources from the Library of Congress, especially portable recording equipment, and would advance the publication of the joint study. In particular, the connection with the Library of Congress would make things easier with white authorities in Memphis and in the Mississippi Delta. Lomax seemed to be after the cooperation of Fisk professors and graduate students who knew their way around the Black south, especially Mississippi.

What turned out is that Lomax demanded that Work give part of the archive of folk recordings he had achieved to the Library of Congress. While Work, and two graduate assistance wrote cogent studies, that included many transcriptions of songs, hymns, sermons, and other Black folk culture, all that came out were recordings done by the Library of Congress. Nearly 50 years later, Alan Lomax came out with a book on this trip called _The Land Where the Blues Began_ which won many prizes and set the stage for another reissue of the recordings made on this expedition.

Yet, the studies by Work, Adams, and Jones were alledgedly "lost" by the Library of Congress and Lomax, although researchers found this information in Lomax's papers several years ago. While Lomax uses photographs taken by Work, data and interviews compiled by Adams and Jones, there is no attributation to these Black scholars. Indeed, Lomax makes many mistakes and even confuses the two trips he actually made with one.

The studies by the Black scholars here that are finally seeing the light of day are important. Rather than focusing solely on remnants of the past and perpetuating the image of the Delta as a dynamic center of change, a mixing pot of Black culture, and place the traditional culture in the context of real change in the real Black community. If Lomax focuses on older Black folk singers and seems to prefer, as Nemerov and Gordon point out in their introduction, the inarticulate, who necessitate interpretation by Lomax, Work, Adams and Jones interview a very articulate cross section of Black people from the Delta ranging from high school students to great grand mothers to give a picture of Black folklore and live in the world.

As Adams and Jones were sociologists working on the equivalent of Master's Theses under the supervision of Charles S, Johnson, their papers about life in the Delta and its connection to folklore are important for anyone interested in Black history and culture in general, and life in the Delta in particular. There is none of the romanticism that non-African American blues writers like to invest Mississippi and the Delta with in their writing. There is no garbage about meeting the devil at the crossroads, but there is a lot about the growing race consciousness and growing refusal to take the oppression whites were dishing out that would explode into a civil rights movement.

Since I wrote this review, I have found the scholarship here, particularly about the changing sociology of the Delta to be extremely useful in discussing several questions that people have asked me, or thinking about other questions involving the history of the blues, banjos, old time music and the civil rights music. When I say helpful, I mean it has provided clear and documented answers to questions academics working these fields have raised with me.

This is a useful serious work written with great concision and clarity. It stands in stark contrast to the sloppy purple prosed, self centered, stereotype seeking and producing "white boy who knows Black folks" approach Alan Lomax took in his book _The Land Where the Blues Began_ which purports to cover the same material.

Drifting on a Read: Jazz As a Model for Writing (Suny Series in American Labor History)

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Drifting on a Read: Jazz As a Model for Writing (Suny Series in American Labor History)
Michael Jarrett
Manufacturer: State University of New York Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0791440982

Book Description

For almost a century, writers such as Ralph Ellison, Michael Ondaatje, and Ishmael Reed have expressed an affinity for jazz, hearing the music as a model for writing. Michael Jarrett examines their work and the work of others who have brought jazz into language, pushing "interpretation" into the realm of "invention."

Musical Memories of Laura Ingalls Wilder (History Alive Through Music)

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A wonderful addition to your "Little House" collection!

Musical Memories of Laura Ingalls Wilder (History Alive Through Music)
William T. Anderson
Manufacturer: Great Christian Book Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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A wonderful addition to your "Little House" collection!.......1999-02-06

This book gives background information for many of the songs that Laura quotes in her books. Music was an important part of Laura's family life, and if you always wondered what those tunes sounded like, this book and cassette are for you!

Pistol Packin' Mama: Aunt Molly Jackson and the Politics of Folksong (Music in American Life)

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pistol packin momma
Thanks for writing this book

Pistol Packin' Mama: Aunt Molly Jackson and the Politics of Folksong (Music in American Life)
Shelly Romalis
Manufacturer: University of Illinois Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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pistol packin momma.......2003-08-06

this book is about my dad's sister aunt molly jackson.my dad was biil garland .aunt molly was called pistol packin momma because she rode horseback across the mountains to deliver babies. she always carried her pistol with her in case there was trouble.she had a gruff voice ,but a twinkle in her eye when she would tell her stories.she believed in helping people and, her songs reflected this.she was a treasure.aunt molly is a part of our mountain heritiage we should never forget.i teach my children and grandchildren about my mountain heritiage

Thanks for writing this book.......2000-06-05

I first heard about "pistol packin' mama" when I was a child. They played the song on the radio then announced that Molly Jackson had died. My mother told me then that she was my granny's half-sister. What child is not going to be fascinated by being related to someone with that sort of nickname? My grandma, Lona Isabelle, is the Garland that did not leave Kentucky. She married Matt Doolin and proceeded to have lots of children. At least one of her sons was killed in the coal mine. She told me lots of stories but never once mentioned Molly. My cousins and I were understandably curious but could not find out anything about her. We saw Jim and Sarah when they came to visit, but they never mentioned her either. We have all tried to find out about her in various libraries with very little luck. I have just started using the internet and this was one of the first things I looked up.I found this book and ordered it, hoping it would give me some idea about who she was. I received the book yesterday and could not put it down. Obviously all of my family will be as interested as I am. I think it will be fascinating to anyone interested in labor relations, women's roles in history, or Appalachian living. It was well worth the money to me and you will be getting more orders from our family. I want to thank Shelly Romalis for taking the time to research and write this book.

Juilliard: A HISTORY (Music in American Life)

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A Major Contribution
An inside job...
At long last-almost a bull's eye
At long last-almost a bull's eye

Juilliard: A HISTORY (Music in American Life)
Andrea Olmstead
Manufacturer: University of Illinois Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0252071069

Customer Reviews:

A Major Contribution.......2000-05-15

Congratulations on a major contribution to American music. I read "Juilliard: A History" with admiration for its fine scholarship and courage in writing about contemporary events and still powerful people with such honesty.

An inside job..........2000-03-09

The name Juilliard has been held synonymous with classical music training for so long that it is surprising that no-one has taken a potshot at it. This book is neither for or against Juilliard, but rather an appraisal of its strengths and weaknesses through a look at its history. The chapter on drama, containing so many references to now-household names, might be of particular interest to the casual reader. Dancers may be interested to find out why their department was forced to compete with another school in their own building. Musicians, whether they attended Juilliard or not, will find a lot of Olmstead's observations titillating. A good read, and a lot of insight from someone who worked there.

At long last-almost a bull's eye.......2000-02-16

Olmstead's book is long overdue. While the research appears thorough and the writing professional, there's at least one outright mistake. Olga Samaroff (Stokowski) never taught at the Curtis Institute, rather the Philadelphia Conservatory in the same city. She also implies that the Institute of Musical Art was the equal of the Juilliard Graduate School. All you have to do is compare the faculty and the student body prior to the merger to see that JGS was indeed where the hotshots were concentrated. I have personally concluded that the book is reliable in reporting on the post World War II Juilliard but take her account of its early years with a grain of salt. This is understandable since most of the "old guard" are now deceased. Still, a valuable reference for those of us in the field.

At long last-almost a bull's eye.......2000-02-16

Black Studies, Rap, and the Academy (Black Literature and Culture Series)

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CLARITY OF THOUGHT: WHERE HOUSTON BAKER ERRED IN HIS DISCUSSION OF BLACK STUDIES, RAP, AND THE ACADEMY
Black Strdies, Rap and the Academy

Black Studies, Rap, and the Academy (Black Literature and Culture Series)
Jr., Houston A. Baker
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0226035204

Book Description

In this explosive book, Houston Baker takes stock of the current state of Black Studies in the university and outlines its responsibilities to the newest form of black urban expression—rap. A frank, polemical essay, Black Studies, Rap, and the Academy is an uninhibited defense of Black Studies and an extended commentary on the importance of rap. Written in the midst of the political correctness wars and in the aftermath of the Los Angeles riots, Baker's meditation on the academy and black urban expression has generated much controversy and comment from both ends of the political spectrum.

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CLARITY OF THOUGHT: WHERE HOUSTON BAKER ERRED IN HIS DISCUSSION OF BLACK STUDIES, RAP, AND THE ACADEMY.......2006-02-11

The discussion of Black Studies and the academy is one that is essentially centered on diametrical contradiction-the academy itself, an institution based on Western ideologies that gives little or no credence to African contribution, and Black studies, arguably, the African centered exploration of an institutionally marginalized people. Add to that discussion the complexities of rap music with its blatant misogyny and reflective, although cracked, mirror held up to the realities of Africana urban existence-and you have a heated and passionate debate. Houston A Baker's book, Black Studies, Rap and the Academy, was not that debate.

I am convinced that there has never been a more contrived, convoluted, waste of discourse on topics that demand much critical attention. To produce a body of work as a Black scholar that does not work to correct the diseased misperception of the majority or to elevate the minds of the oppressed is an exercise in futility and does nothing more than perpetuate the phenomenon of white superiority. Baker, it seems, needed to impress the academy and produce some scholarship that qualified his Blackness and that proved that he had his finger on the pulse of Black culture. I assume the obvious choice was to choose rap music because, supposedly, all Black people have rhythm and can dance and it is certainly an easily vilifiable subject. Baker is an academic minstrel, pimping the culture of hip-hop to the prestigious academy to prove, it appears, that he is not only more intellectual than most Black people, but also to academically spank the collective hand of Black youth that would dare to produce music that reflects a bleak reality.

If I understood his contentions correctly, and I'm not sure that I did, Baker did nothing more than assert that rap music was sometimes violent and sexist and that it was an avenue for cultural expression for black youth. If that was his thesis, "he ain't said nothing but a thang," to use the vernacular of a people that he apparently finds distasteful. If that wasn't his point, then I lost it in trying to decipher the meaning of the quixotic pastiche of the Arnoldian cultural commodity contingent upon the urbanity . . . or whatever obscure, meandering rhetoric he felt such a penchant for using. Whatever theories he presented to tie the concepts of Black Studies and rap together went completely over my head because his writing style couldn't hold my attention for more than a few minutes without confusing me.

At no point in the book did I feel that Baker had ever listened to or respected rap music. In fact, his reference to the beginnings of rap reflected the media's interpretation of rap and were not reflective of my memories of the early 80s when I would ride the train to the Bronx or Queens, where some dj was burning up the wheels of steel. I grew up on rap. I've seen it evolve from an art form that I once loved to something that offends my very sensibilities as a Black woman. Whether I love it or hate it, it deserves more analytical critique than Dr. Baker afforded it. Some of the individuals he lists as pioneers, we, New York City's Black youth, considered clowns. Freestylin' was what we went to hear, extemporaneous lyrical battles where one sucka' MC would get taken out by another who could prove his intellectual genius over a beat. It was our form of nonviolent revolution, not to be televised, that lamented over how much we hated whitey and our social conditions.

Break dancing was not as popular as Baker asserts. Breaking was relegated to very small sects of gangs that were popularized by the movies Breakin and Crush Groove. For the most part, when a rap song came on in the club, no one danced. At best, all you could do was throw your hands in the air, and wave them like you just don't care, literally. Dancing and rap didn't go together. Rap was the music of Black men proving that they were a force to be reckoned with, not for dancers. It was disrespectful to dance to PE or BDP, not to mention the fact, with its repetitive tracks, it wasn't meant to be dance music. MTV showed artists like Whodini, rapping about freaks coming out at night and the Fat Boys, shoving food in their face, and while we enjoyed seeing anybody on TV that looked like us, that was not the reality of true hip-hop culture. Baker failed to contribute similar insights into the culture of hip-hop that were garnered from anything other than Hollywood's interpretation of the emergence of rap music.

Giving credit where credit is due, hidden within the pages of this book is a poetic, albeit missed, attempt to speak in the tongue of an African. On the page, written in black and white, Baker's words are heavy laden with vocabulary intended for only the most elite. But spoken, read out loud, they are, at times, the words of the griot, winding tales of rhythmic, social expression. Whether conscious of his tactics or not, Baker effectively reinforces the notion that Black people have a cultural language that we can not effectively write. In one of his more obvious attempts to wax poetic, Baker writes this:
What time is it? Time to get busy from the midseventies into the wildstyle popularization of the eighties. From Parks to Priority Records, from random sampling to Run DMC. Fiercely competitive and hugely braggadocious in their energies, the quest of the emergent rap technologists was for the baddest toasts, boasts and signifying possible. The form was male dominant-though KRS-One and the earliest male posses will tell you the "ladies" were always there. Answering back, dissing the ways of menfolk and kinfolk alike who tried to ease them into the postmodern dozens.

While this style is not present in the entire work, nor would I consider it sufficient to sustain a reader for one hundred pages, and it most certainly wouldn't win a prize at an open mic contest, it is the medium that modern day poets use to tell lyrical tales of cultural and social angst. Better delivered in a dark nightclub with dread locked brothas and clove-smoking sistas, Baker's later words sometimes ring true to an African cultural aesthetic of storytelling and rhyme, an academic rap if you will.

If the standard for producing Black scholarship means that one must alienate people of color whose consciousness needs to be raised, by conforming to the very narrow constraints of Western academy, to be considered valuable in the eyes of one's peers, then my future as an academic is doomed. If the objective of Black Studies is to prove that one has overcome their inherent Blackness and is now able to speak in the tongue of a traditional Western academic standard, then I shall remain a street prophet, unlettered and wholly African. That is a lesson Houston Baker might need to learn.

Black Strdies, Rap and the Academy.......2000-05-01

This book is exactly what i needed for a paper on the history of rap. It will bring you to a new world of understanding rap. I highly recomend this book!

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A History of American Music Education
Michael Mark , and Charles Gary
Manufacturer: Rowman & Littlefield Education
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1565451155

Book Description

This book begins with an examination of the roots of American music education and traces its development in American society from colonial times to the present-day standards movement. Complete with instructive examples, facsimiles, extensive notes, and bibliographies.

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