Potato City: Nature, History, and Community in the Age of Sprawl

Book Description

Catbirds and pocket gophers, bur oaks and bull snakes, bluestem grass and leopard frogs have populated the gently rolling prairies around Sue Leaf's midwestern farming community for centuries. A hundred years ago her town, located forty-five miles from the nearest city, shipped thousands of tons of potato starch across the country, stiffening the collars of working men. Today it has become one of America's fast-growing suburbs. As naturalist and biologist Sue Leaf watched her rural surroundings become a magnet for developers, she became curious about the history of the land. Before the freeway and the housing developments, before the farmers cultivated the fertile soil, what plants and animals called this place home? To her delight, Leaf discovered the oak savanna, a park-like ecosystem that supports abundant wildlife and soothes the human psyche with its quiet, open spaces. As she looked more closely, she found remnants of the savanna in her own yard, in the trees lining her quiet street, and in nearby preserved patches of prairie. In lyrical essays, Leaf traces the natural history of her community, offering rich details about the people who built this area, about its once prosperous farms, and about the oak trees and wildflowers and prairie animals native to this part of the country. By examining remnants of the past still visible in a place deeply affected by sprawl, Leaf reveals how to slow down, look carefully, and untangle the jumble of unnoticed clues that can enrich our daily lives. "Leaf advises us all to discover our own communities' natural treasures before, through ignorance, we lose them." --Boston Sunday Globe "Leaf writes about the pace of sprawl, the loss of farmland and a way of life that seems like a dream or a place buried somewhere in our collective memory." --Los Angeles Times

Customer Reviews:

Potato City.......2007-01-08

I must say this book took me by surprise. I borrowed it from an uncle via my mother who said it was a good book. Many times her opinions fail to inspire me to actually finish the book in question. But this book is truly a gem. It has it all, history, environment, natural history, ecology, and an underlying message on modern urban development.

This book focuses on North Branch, Minnesota, a town I have been connected to my entire life. It began as a small farming community in east central Minnesota, but today is one of the fastest growing outer ring suburbs in our state. This book chronicles the town's beginnings, its present, and projects its future. Potatoes were the reason this community was born, but the coming of dairy farming altered the soil chemistry and the potato industry passed into history.

The author does a splendid job recreating this history, but this is no mere history book. It covers the natural environment and how the community dealt with (and continues to deal with) growth. Sue Leaf offers warnings to developing this area without proper care for the land being developed. The local ecosystems are in jeopardy if true environmentalism is not fully integrated into development plans.

This book focuses on one former farming community but in reality it could be Anywhere, USA by just changing a few of the details. I recommend this book for history lovers, ecology or natural history lovers, urban planners (or any who face the threat or the prospect of development, or anyone interested in reading a darn good book.

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Some edible mushrooms and how to know them,
Nina Lane Faubion
Manufacturer: Binfords & Mort
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Plants | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B00085K5BQ

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Not all it could be

A complement, not a critique of Darwinism

One-size-fits-all speciation

They almost had me fooled ...

Skip the first 8 chapters!

Acquiring Genomes: The Theory of the Origins of the Species
Lynn Margulis , and Dorion Sagan
Manufacturer: Basic Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biology | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
General | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books
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General | Evolution | Professional Science | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0465043925
Release Date: 2003-06-17

Book Description

From one of the great iconoclasts of modern biology, Lynn Margulis, a groundbreaking new theory of the origins of species.

How do new species evolve? Although Darwin identified inherited variation as the creative force in evolution, he never formally speculated where it comes from. His successors thought that new species arise from the gradual accumulation of random mutations of DNA. But despite its acceptance in every major textbook, there is no documented instance of it.

Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan take a radically new approach to this question. They show that speciation events are not, in fact, rare or hard to observe. Genomes are acquired by infection, by feeding, and by other ecological associations, and then inherited. Acquiring Genomes is the first work to integrate and analyze the overwhelming mass of evidence for the role of bacterial and other symbioses in the creation of plant and animal diversity. It provides the most powerful explanation of speciation yet given.

Customer Reviews:

Not all it could be.......2007-09-24

As someone deeply suspicious of Richard Dawkin's 'Selfish Gene' theory of evolution, which is often put forward as THE theory of evolution which one must believe if one is not a creationist idiot, I was really looking forward to this book. Furthermore, I greatly enjoyed Margulis' earlier work Microcosmos. Nevertheless, I was somewhat disappointed by Acquiring Genomes. A number of the theoretical assertions--that evolution happens through symbiosis and the acquisition of genomes, rather than random mutation, that evolution is in line with the second law of thermodynamics because it reduces gradients, I found extremely provocative. But the book shifts gears too quickly between provocative theoretical postures and daunting technical language. As a reader of popular scientific journalism with no higher education training in biology, I found considerable chunks of the book incomprehensible. I think it would have been more effective if the authors had more slowly walked through several of the examples that support their theory. Perhaps I am not the ideal reader, but I would note that the publisher is named 'Basic Books', presumably to invite general readers.

A complement, not a critique of Darwinism.......2007-09-09

My review will take the form of a critique of an earlier review and then I will provide a couple comments thereafter.

An earlier reviewer erroneously states, "Lynn Margulis has joined the pack, attempting a direct refutation of Darwin's idea of evolution by natural selection. In her view, natural selection plays only a minimal role in the story of life."

She neither dismisses Darwinism nor Natural Selection. She actually questions Neo-Darwinism and her view strongly supports natural selection.
The authors question the Neo-Darwinist's over-reliance and exaggeration of gradual accumulation by random mutations (which they don't altogether dismiss). She raises the fact that most mutations are deleterious and neutral and do not provide evidential support for MOST/ALL speciation. She does provide abundant evidence that supports her idea of symbiogenesis as the driver of evolutionary novelty.

An earlier reviewer also points out,"Instead, like Gould, she demolishes not only "Origin," but all those scientists adhering to its tenets, as well."

Again she intends to complement Darwin and demonstrate the shortcomings of the Neo-Darwinian synthesis. Your critique clearly conflates the two.

I do agree with another reviewer that the book at times feel strangely disjointed at times (and why I gave it a 4). Even so the work provides some revolutionary concepts that are worth further investigation.

I also agree that the book at times feel polemical, but I think given the over dominant, current point of view that a few extremities might be useful in calling attention to the current view's shortcomings and the sublimity of their theory of symbiogenesis. I really don't care how polemical a work is as long as it supports itself with evidence and I think the authors do a fantastic job of doing so. Even if they turn out to be wrong about the tertiary role of mutations in speciation, their theory adds another layer of provable facts, namely speciation through symbiosis, to the overall Theory of Evolution.

Lastly, no Creationist can successfully hijack this book for their own agenda. To do so is an intellectual act of dishonesty and ignorance.

One-size-fits-all speciation.......2007-01-05

If you primarily present your theory by insultingly tearing down simplified misrepresentations of others' theories, as Margulis & Sagan constantly do in 'Acquiring Genomes', your theory is almost certainly suspect.

It's not clear why the authors find it necessary or even desirable to claim that speciation ALWAYS stems from symbiogenesis, especially when they've gone to great lengths to demonstrate the promiscuous opportunistic nature of Life. Why shoot down one less-than-fully-satisfactory engine of speciation -- random mutations naturally selected -- merely to erect another one-size-fits-all speciation engine?

A sampling of free insults: Neo-darwinists & evolutionary biologists are "entirely wrongheaded", "self-proclaimed", "confused and baffled", "ignorant of bacteria, fungi and...protists", understanding only "people, pets, and our zoo and food animals". Theirs is "an idiosyncratic belief system" [this from the people who helped bring you 'GAIA'!!!]. I could go on & on, but you get the point.

Far from being a brave & lonely Cassandra whose Voice of Truth is ignored by the persecuting multitudes of evolutionist sheeple as she depicts herself, Lynn Margulis is in fact a distinguished scientist highly honored by her peers, if not highly admired or liked for reasons of her own idiosyncracies, as made completely understandable by 'AG'. Many if not most of the ideas Margulis promotes are widely -- & in the case of mitochondria and chloroplasts, universally -- accepted by those she so freely castigates.

Are there evolutionists who believe that mutations are the sole driving force of evolution?--possibly a few. But hardly the 99.9% that Margulis & Sagan pretend. But accepting the evidence marshalled by Margulis' (& hundreds of other scientists) of symbiogenesis does not, & should not, perforce lead to believing that symbiogenesis is the sole mechanism of speciation, no matter how critical it may be as a means of forming eukaryotic cells where none existed before, or starting whole new kingdoms & phyla of plants, fungi & animals.

Is it sensible to invoke symbiogenesis, because it has given Life these vital giant leaps forward, as the only possible tool for differentiating, for example, the various species of finches on the various Galapagos islands? Do we really wish to claim that Darwin's finches hooked up with different bacteria on different islands in order to alter their beak sizes?

Margulis & Sagan would have us gloss over this question entirely by claiming that: 1) we can't observe Galapagos finches quite managing to speciate right now (though they come remarkably close some very wet or very dry years); 2) empty niches like the Galapagos aren't common or important on the global scale, & 3) we fixate too much on birds & mammals anyway, when we should all be focussing on bacteria.

But over geologic time, rarities become inevitabilities. Few niches may be empty now, but wait a few million years: things will change. When sealevel rises or falls, when temperature & rainfall patterns alter, the biosphere will be put into dynamic motion, with old niches closing & new niches opening up. And as this happens, it makes a good deal more sense to invoke geographic isolation as a mechanism of generating new species based on the beak size of finches or the number of pairs of compound eyes of trilobites, rather than calling for a new set of bacterial symbionts.

The essential insight of the theory of punctuated equilibria is that ecosystems -- & the species that compose them -- mirror the sedimentary systems that many of their fossils are encased in, with longterm stabilities (formations) separated by short-term drastic fluctuations. Which is something that geologists (of whom I am one) should have realized & argued for considerably before Stephen Jay Gould & Niles Eldridge did. And the typical macrofaunal speciation events -- which are of greater interest to us, bacteria or no -- in the rock record fit best into models of geographic isolation, as Eldridge has recently been arguing (without finding it necessary to insult his peers).

None of which should be construed as meaning that Margulis' ideas are not highly stimulating or worth reading, merely that it's unnecessary & unwise to stretch her big idea into a Complete Explanation of All Life, a la GAIA.

They almost had me fooled ..........2004-11-29

I was almost ready to seriously consider Margulis' and Sagan's revolutionary theory until I read Sagan's update, in which he writes "Because chromosome arrangements differ slightly in closely related mammal species (e.g., dogs and wolves) that no longer breed with each other ..."

Everybody knows that wolves and domestic dogs CAN breed. You can buy wolf/dog hybrids from breeders such as http://www.dogpage.us/wolfdogs.htm.

If one of the authors is this removed from common sense, I wonder about the rest of the theory. And I wonder if his mother knows what he's up to.

Skip the first 8 chapters!.......2004-11-10

In an earlier work Margulis, who is a distinguished scientist, recounted her struggles in getting a theory accepted which is now part of the orthodoxy: that the mitochondria and chloroplast organelles originated as separate organisms. Chapters 9-13 of Acquiring Genomes discuss more recent findings by her and others which point to the importance of saltatory (sudden) changes as contrasted to gradual evolution. In particular, there is evidence that radically different marine species, from different phyla, can very occasionally successfully mate, and that this may be the basis for the larval stages in so many animals. There is even more evidence that in one event, all the chromosomes in an animal can break in half without destroying the viability of the animal or its ability to mate with "normal" members of the species - although it is not discussed how exactly this leads to change. There is additional insight into how the nucleated cell was first formed. Unfortunately, Margulis did not have a collaborator who had the patience to expand on these chapters, providing more background, and making them more accessible to the layman. Chapters 1-8 of Acquiring Genomes should be SKIPPED, which means that if the reader does not have some comfort with Margulis' original ideas, the whole book should be skipped. These first chapters are bombastic, argumentative, repetitive, inaccurate, and have relatively little information of value. One idea I did get from these chapters (which I skimmed, not being a masochist) is that, in a sense, all bacteria are members of one species, since they all can interchange genes. Also, some bacterial symbionts are actually inherited, in that they are present in the egg or sperm, while not yet in the nucleus.

ACQUIRING GENOMES: A THEORY OF THE ORIGINS OF SPECIES

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ACQUIRING GENOMES: A THEORY OF THE ORIGINS OF SPECIES
Lynn Margulis
Manufacturer: Perseus Books Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NWKHUI

Book Description

The theory of singular perturbations has evolved as a response to the need to find approximate solutions (in an analytical form) to complex problems. Typically, such problems are expressed in terms of differential equations which contain at least one small parameter, and they can arise in many fields: fluid mechanics, particle physics, and combustion processes, to name but three.

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The best book of the Rougon-Macquart series

A hidden treasure

Election intrigue in France's deep south

The Conquest of Plassans (Rougon-Macquart)
Émile Zola
Manufacturer: Mondial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Historical | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Zola, Emile | ( Z ) | Authors, A-Z | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1595690484

Customer Reviews:

The best book of the Rougon-Macquart series.......2005-12-09

FROM THE PUBLISHER
The Conquest of Plassans (Rougon-Macquart): The Rougon family, in M. Zola's narrative, rises to fortune, and the town of Plassans (really Aix-en-Provence) bows down before its power. But time passes, the revolt of the clergy supervenes, by their influence the town chooses a Royalist Marquis as deputy, and it becomes necessary to conquer it once again. ---Abbé Faujas, by whom this conquest is achieved on behalf of the Empire, is a strongly conceived character, perhaps the most real of all the priests that are scattered through M. Zola's books. No other priestly creation of M. Zola's pen vie with the stern, chaste, authoritative, ambitious Faujas, the man who subdues Plassans, and who wrecks the home of the Mouret family, with whom he lives. The book largely deals with the matter of 'the priest in the house,' and towards the end of the volume Mouret, the husband who has been driven mad and shut up in a lunatic asylum, returns home and wreaks the most terrible vengeance upon those who have wronged him. --- The pages which deal with the madman's escape and his horrible revenge are certainly among the most powerful that M. Zola has ever written, and have been commended for their effectiveness by several of his leading critics. --- (Ernest Alfred Vizetelly)

A hidden treasure.......2005-05-03

This is the fourth novel in Zola's Rougon-Macquart series about life during the Second Empire in France. Unfortunately, it is a lesser-known work, long out-of-print (though one can find it in ebook form now). While this book is not one of Zola's masterworks, it certainly doesn't deserve the level of obscurity into which it has fallen. The story takes place in the fictional town of Plassans, in Provence. A new priest comes to town, Abbé Faujas, and he and his mother rent a room in the home of the Mourets (Francois Mouret of the Macquart family, and his wife Marthe Rougon). At first stand-offish and shy, Abbé Faujas soon learns the amount of social and political influence that a clergyman can wield in a small town, and he starts to get more and more involved in the affairs of Plassans. He also starts to insinuate himself more and more into the lives of his landlords, much to the chagrin of Francois Mouret. It's an election year, and as various politicians and church officials play a kind of chess game for the votes of Plassans, the once meek and mild Abbé becomes more power-hungry. Is it possible his previous mild-mannered behavior was just an act to conceal a hidden political agenda? This book has a light-hearted satirical tone overall; it's not one of Zola's deep, philosophical works. Those who have read The Fortune of the Rougons will enjoy the depiction of Plassans, and the further development of some of the characters that appeared in that first book. The characters are engaging and the plot has some surprises in it. Zola seems to have had fun writing it, and it is a fun ride for the reader.

Election intrigue in France's deep south.......1999-10-06

A superb step-by-step account of how to win the hearts and minds of the voters in a small country town. An atmosphere of brooding menace pervades the book as a "creeping Jesus" of a priest is brought in to swing the forthcoming election in favour of the government party. The short chapters make the book highly readable and wind up the tension marvellously. The one person who sees through the priest is powerless to act as his house and his whole life are gradually taken over - until the final cataclysmic scene when .... but I won't spoil it all by telling you what happens. A merciless and meticulous portrayal of the intrigues in a small French provincial town that deserves to be much better known than it is, this early work forms a pair with the following volume (number five) in the Rougon-Macquart saga "La Faute De L'Abbé Mouret/The Sin Of Father Mouret". The subject matter may not be attractive, but Zola has made it compelling reading.

The conquest of Plassans: A tale of provincial life. (La conqueÌÂte de Plassans.)

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The conquest of Plassans: A tale of provincial life. (La conqueÌÂte de Plassans.)
Emile Zola
Manufacturer: T.B. Peterson & brothers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B00087AXI4

Amazon.com

Jennifer Lauck conveys the perceptions, thoughts, and emotions of a frightened child with utter conviction and vivid immediacy in her remarkable memoir of the six years during which both of her parents died. Lauck opens in 1969, when she is 5 and her 31-year-old mother is entering the final phase of a decade of severe health problems. Momma is beautiful and loving; we feel the tender intimacy between mother and daughter, even as we see that Jennifer has assumed a lot of adult responsibilities that make her fearful and obsessed with rules. Eight-year-old brother Bryan responds to Momma's illnesses with anger, and is often cruel to his sister. High-powered, workaholic Daddy does his best, but is not around a lot. (The adult author subtly depicts the kids' half-conscious understanding that Daddy is seeing other women.) As Momma's health worsens and the family moves to Southern California to be near a better hospital, Lauck captures in painful detail the atmosphere of physical decay that surrounds a mortally ill woman. Momma dies on Bryan's 10th birthday. In short order, Daddy has moved them all in with Deb, who obviously has been his girlfriend for a while, and events spiral down from there. Daddy dies of a heart attack before Jennifer turns 10; Deb keeps the stepchildren (whom she dislikes) so that she can get their social security allotment; Jennifer is sent out to work at a residence that is run by Deb's creepy Freedom Community Church. She is 11 by the time that her aunt and uncle rescue her--a moment that is nearly as exultant for readers as it is for the girl whose trials they have shared for nearly 400 pages. Her harrowing story might sound unrelievedly grim in the retelling, but Lauck's lack of self-pity and the delicacy of her prose transform it into an odyssey of endurance and transcendence. --Wendy Smith

Book Description

To young Jenny, the house on Mary Street was home -- the place where she was loved, a blue-sky world of Barbies, Bewitched, and the Beatles. Even her mother's pain from her mysterious illness could be patted away with powder and a kiss on the cheek. But when everything that Jenny had come to rely on begins to crumble, an odyssey of loss, loneliness, and a child's will to survive takes flight....

Customer Reviews:

Vivid, uncomfortable.......2007-08-11

I have to admit that when I first started this book, I had to put it down. I knew it would be sad, and I wasn't in the right mindset the first time around.

But when I picked it up a few months later, I easily became completely engrossed in Jennifer's story. I was afraid of reading about her losing her mother (which is the premise, I'm not giving anything away if you haven't read this yet) but what I found as the story unfolded is that being in the room with her sick mother might actually have been the only safe place for her.

My husband asked, "why do you read books like this? Where's the redemption?" I first I chalked his question up to the stereotypical differing interests between men and women...but in thinking about it I'm drawn to authors who write with a raw voice, who depict their experience completely, without fear of the uncomfortable or outright awful things they have been through. Lauck uses her childhood voice and remains true to it throughout. She digs deeper and deeper into the person she was, and dares to share her with us all. Congratulations to her, I can't imagine what the experience of writing this book has been for her.

Intensely Emotional ..........2007-06-29

I found this book at the Dollar Tree and just picked it up to read (I thought it would be similar to "A Girl Named Zippy" by Haven Kimmel ~~ it's so different!). I read it in two days ~~ just finished it five minutes ago and while I need to take the kids to a doctor's appointment, I need a few minutes to compose myself. Why? It is one of the most intense and emotional memoirs I have ever read. Is this my favorite book? No. But it is one of the best written books I have read this year and one of the more enlightening ones. It shows the worst of human beings and the best of humans.

Jennifer Lauck, named Sunshine by her mother, grew up in a loving home even though her mother was chronically ill through most of her childhood. Her mother dies when she was six. Her father remarries to a horrid woman who has three children of her own. Then her father died when she was 10. This is when it got to be really emotional for me. Jenny was kicked out of her stepmom's home and sent to live in an communal living area with strangers. Barely 11, she had to fend for herself. Fortunately, it was better than living with her stepmom. However, when her stepmom decided that her church was "evil" ~~ Jenny had to move back in with her. But not for long as her mom's family found her and her brother.

This book will tug and pull at your heartstrings. It will make you question the whole of the human race. It will make you ponder the future and start thinking about who will take care of your children if something should ever happen to you. This book is written from a child's perspective ~~ very harrowing like one reviewer has mentioned and very confused ~~ you feel Jenny's confusion and fear as she just tries to survive. It makes you wonder why her family never came to claim her after her dad died ~~ probably figured that she was better off with her stepmom. (I don't know as I haven't read the sequel yet!) Anyways, Jenny's story will touch your heart and soul in places you would never think to look at. And it will make you count your blessings and your children's blessings in ways you don't normally think about. It will also make you more protective of your children ...

Would I recommend this book? Yes. I would also recommend it to the book club as it is definitely a good discussion fodder for any book club. Would I consider this book to be a good reading? No. It is beautifully written but it is so sad. One cannot enjoy reading a book about misery ~~ one can only learn from this book and apply the lessons learned to her/his life. It is a book that should be read as a testimony to Jennifer's strength and strong will and her survival as only then can she trimpuh over the sadness in her life. It is a book about survival, enduring love and fighting to live. It is a book about the worst of life and the best of life and how life just happens ...

If you read this book ~~ you will not walk away from it unchanged. It will haunt you and remind you of life's fragility.

6-29-07

Poor Baby!.......2007-06-01

This is a memoir of someones life that you would want to wrap your arms around and say "There There it is going to be ok"
After closing the book you then realize this little girl was not completely aware of everything she was experiencing "Until" she became an adult and looked back. The resilency and resourcefulness of oppressed spirits is truly a mercy from the Creator.

Bad book club selection. No insiration .......2007-05-18

Kept hoping this book would evolve into some sort of "parable," where reader could learn something to apply to own life.

All of Jennifer Lauck's Books are Funny and Heart Wrenching.......2007-02-03

I love, love, love memoirs. I love stories that have to do with childhood, death and dying, etc. I love books that are funny, well written and take you away. Thus, Jennifer Lauck's 3 books are all on my best ever, favorite books list.

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Blackbird - A Childhood Lost And Found
Jennifer Lauk
Manufacturer: Pocket Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000IWMVIY

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Blackbird A Childhood Lost and Found
Lauck Jennifer
Manufacturer: Pocket Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000UF25NA

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Blackbird: A Childhood Lost and Found
Jennifer Lauck
Manufacturer: Pocket Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NW9ROA

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Blackbird: A Childhood Lost and Found
Jennifer Lauck
Manufacturer: Chivers North America
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette
ASIN: B000IQHFVI

Blackbird: A Childhood Lost and Found (SIGNED)

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Blackbird: A Childhood Lost and Found (SIGNED)
Jennifer Lauck
Manufacturer: Pocket Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000GTPQ1I

Book Description

On the American frontier, African American units of the U.S. Army--nicknamed "Buffalo Soldiers" by their Indian opponents--were renowned for their fortitude, courage, and ability to handle difficult assignments. Despite such respect in the military, by the end of the nineteenth century Black civilians were still being subjected to Jim Crow laws, lynchings, and continuous discrimination. At this same time newspapers were reporting glowing accounts of the heroism of four Black regiments during the Spanish-American War.

In an effort to bolster Black pride and stem the increasing racism of the age, Dr. T.G. Steward (1843-1924), chaplain of the U.S. Army's Twenty-fifth Infantry, requested and received permission from the army to publish this fascinating account of the Black soldier's military service in Cuba. After summarizing the African American contribution to all of the wars and conflicts leading up to the Spanish-American War, Steward concentrates on the war in Cuba. Among the intriguing episodes recounted are the rescue of the Rough Riders led by Theodore Roosevelt, the capture of the stone fort at El Caney, the service of the Black infantrymen as volunteer nurses in the yellow fever camps, and long excerpts from the diary of Medal of Honor winner E.L. Baker of the Tenth Cavalry.

Enhanced by an extensive foreword from Frank N. Schubert, former chief of Joint Operational History for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and an expert on the Buffalo Soldiers, this work remains a model of careful narrative history and still the single best source of information on the role of the Black soldiers in the war against Spain.

Customer Reviews:

BUFFALO SOLDIERS.......2007-01-06

I AM PROUD TO KNOW A BUFFALO SOLDIER-HERO OF THE DAYS PAST TO BE REMEMBERED

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Extremely Interesting

Tale of a True Mensch

Defeat your companies anti-union plan!

Confessions of a Union Member

Well-written and astute

Confessions of a Union Buster
Marty Levitt , and Terry C. Toczynski
Manufacturer: Crown
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Labor & Industrial Relations | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Labor Unions | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
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The Union Member's Complete Guide: Everything You Want -- And Need -- To Know About Working Union

ASIN: 0517583305
Release Date: 1993-08-24

Book Description

A former union buster exposes the dirty tricks that elevated him to the top of his profession and that have transformed the war on organized labor into a billion-dollars-per-year industry. This book is the story of a man who has decided to come in out of the cold, to clear his conscience, and to share the hard lessons he has learned. Line drawings.

Customer Reviews:

Extremely Interesting.......2003-12-12

This book is a fascinating account of not only union busting but a man's descent into greed. I couldn't put it down.

Tale of a True Mensch.......2002-07-16

In retrospect, this author is able to see what choices and decisions he had to make in his working life made on others; not a usual occurrence in the real world.

What Marty Levitt passes on to his readers is that even though he didn't feel the brunt of his decisions at the time, he realized the difference that he made on their lives later, when he was able to review and reflect on his own choices.

The tale of alcoholism is sad, but admirable in that he acknowledged it and was seeking a better life for the future.

Marty's decision was a good one, to share this story with the world. It is well written and well presented; an enlightening way to share his knowledge and experience about unions and union busting, as well as own personal weaknesses with the world in order to move on. I even enjoyed re-reading it after over five years.

Defeat your companies anti-union plan!.......2001-12-25

Marty is an extrordinary man who, not only through this book, is helping workers gain the right to better working conditions and benefits.

In Las Vegas we are organizing all the Wal-Mart's and Sam's Club's and recently my Sam's Club was the first one in quite some time to petition for an entire store election.

Marty volunteered his time to talk with us about what the company would do (which they did) and how to counter it.

His book is full of his exploits as a 'union buster' and the damage he created. For anyone who believes that their company is trying to 'educate' them about unions should first read this book.

Bottom line: If you want to know how far corporate America wants to restrict their employees rights under Federal law to have a Union, read this book.

Confessions of a Union Member.......2001-02-23

I read Mr. Levitt's book on the recommendation of a coworker. While I found it to be an informative and digusting peek into the sordid world of the professional union-buster, I was dismayed that Mr. Levitt was using his misery causing professional experience to make more money from the victims he is now trying to make ammends to after the crime.

The book is a must read for any American worker - particularly those who labor in a Right To Work state or under a Birmingham Plan minded management. I only wish that any profits from the book were going to fund union organizing drives in an effort to make some small reparation to those who were harmed by the odious and demeaning tactics Mr. Levitt wielded as his tools of trade in the employ of greedy, capricious managers.

Well-written and astute.......2000-07-06

A well-written and comprehensive account of a labor relations consultant's misdeeds. Catalogues with many accute psychological observations the harm many managers and labor relations consultants cause workers through wrong actions--often, he confesses, willfully. Also, the personal experience of holding a destructive job and the accompanying mechanisms denial are important to understand, both in this book and in all our lives as workers, consultants, or managers. In his career, Levitt's cycle of destructive work was linked with alcoholism and compensatory over-spending, and the authors make it clear that the personal psychological knots of consultants and managers perpetuate their wrong actions and livelihoods. This narration is heartrending and sickening, but is a vital call to examination of the labor crimes in this country and of personal responsibility for suffering.

Book Description

Early in this volume, David Ehrenfeld describes what prophecy really is. Referring to the biblical prophets, he says they were not the "holy fortunetellers that the word prophet has come to signify....The business of prophecy is not simply foretelling the future; rather it is describing the present with exceptional truthfulness and accuracy." Once this is done, then it can be seen that broad aspects of the future have suddenly become apparent. The twentieth century is drawing to a chaotic close amidst portents of unprecedented change and upheaval. The unravelling of societies and civilizations and the destruction of nature march together--linked--a fact whose enormous significance is often lost. In Beginning Again, David Ehrenfeld has undertaken the difficult task of describing the present clearly enough to reveal the future. Out of his broad vision emerges a glimpse of a new millennium: a vision at once frightening and comforting, a scene of great devastation and great rebuilding. Ehrenfeld ranges far and wide to present a coherent vision of our relationship with Nature--its many aspects and implications--as our century opens into the next millennium. Whether he is writing about the problem of loyalty to organizations, rights versus obligations, our over-managed society, the vanishing of established knowledge, the failure of experts, the triumph of dandelions, Dr. Seuss, Edward Teller, or the future of farming, he is always concerned with the intricate interaction between technology and nature. As in his classic book, The Arrogance of Humanism, Ehrenfeld never loses sight of our fatal love affair with the fantasy of control. We now have no choice, he argues, but to transform the dream of control, of progress, from one of overweening hubris, love of consumption, and the idiot's goal of perpetual growth, to one based on "the inventive imitation of nature," with its honesty, beauty, resilience, and durability. Few American writers and even fewer scientists can describe these timeless, transcendent qualities of nature so well. In "Places," the opening chapter, David Ehrenfeld tells about nightly vigils he spent alone on the moonlit beach of Tortuguero, watching giant sea turtles emerging from the sea to lay their eggs in the black sand where they were born. "I could watch the perfect white spheres falling," he writes. "Falling as they have fallen for a hundred million years, with the same slow cadence, always shielded from the rain or stars by the same massive bulk with the beaked head and the same large, myopic eyes rimmed with crusts of sand washed out by tears. Minutes and hours, days and months dissolve into eons. I am on an Oligocene beach, an Eocene beach, a Cretaceous beach--the scene is the same. It is night, the turtles are coming back, always back; I hear a deep hiss of breath and catch a glint of wet shell as the continents slide and crash, the oceans form and grow."

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