A Tradition of Giving: Seventy-Five Years of Myer Family Philanthropy

Book Description

This history of the Sidney Myer Fund and the Myer Foundation, two arms of one of the largest philanthropic organizations in Australia, explores the altruistic ethic of three generations of the Myer family as well as the larger historical and social context of Australian philanthropy. Compared to the United States, privately donated wealth plays a minor role in building Australia's major civic, welfare, and cultural institutions, making the Myer family's giving since 1934 distinctive. This example of altruism is used to explore the nature, shaping, and consequence of philanthrophy in Australia's market-driven and pluralistic society.

Book Description

For thirty-two years Coach Carm Cozza`s football program at Yale exemplified excellence. This engaging book is Cozza`s story, the reminiscences of a caring and principled teacher whose course material was athletic competition, whose classroom was a football field, and whose final exam was The Game against Harvard. Cozza brings us behind the scenes, recalls the outstanding men who played for him, and offers thoughts on football programs today.

Customer Reviews:

A must read for any Yale Football fan........1999-10-25

Every Yale fan will enjoy Carm Cozza's humble jourey from Miami of Ohio {Coach's U} to the hallow halls of Yale University. Cozza provides the reader with insights on Yale's football past, present and future. An informative sports read.

Average customer rating:

True Blue: The Carm Cozza Story
Rick Odermatt Carm Cozza
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ORR1JM

Amazon.com

Apes fans, this is it: aside from an early '70s article that appeared in Cinefantastique, nobody but nobody's paid much attention to the making of the groundbreaking Planet of the Apes saga. The wait is over, though--and how. Unapologetic fanboys Joe Russo and Larry Landsman (and, later, Edward Gross) have been laboring over this exhaustive, fact-packed, behind-the scenes record of all five movies, the TV show, and the cartoon for the better part of 17 years. The effort shows, with countless on-set pictures, unprecedented access to the estates of Rod Serling, Roddy McDowall, and producer Arthur P. Jacobs, and extensive quotes from virtually everyone associated with the project, from screenwriters to actors to makeup artists to the special effects crew. (To give you an idea of the devotion we're talking about, Russo actually wrote his first "making of" Apes book back in the fifth grade. It was hand stitched with a plastic cover.)

Deserving of special note is Charlton Heston, who contributed not only the foreword for this book but scores of entries from his swaggering personal journals. ("A helluva long day, in the course of which I was finally brought to earth as Taylor. Having evaded clubs, whips, horsemen, crowds, they tripped me ass over teakettle into a thrown net and hoisted me high.... Upside down in a net, a man isn't worth much.") But even more interesting are the minutiae that inevitably emerge in any close examination of a production this complicated: that Marlon Brando had been considered first for the lead, that there were racial casting concerns in the wake of the Watts riots, even the fact that Planet of the Apes hit the small screen in an attempt to knock off Sanford and Son. This account may sprawl a bit in spots, with some quotes that overlap overmuch and minutiae that's awfully minute, but any fan who has even an ounce of Russo and Landsman's enthusiasm will be hard-pressed to complain. --Paul Hughes

Book Description

Planet of the Apes Revisited is the colorful, factual account of the science fiction milestone, Planet of the Apes, and the series of movies and TV shows it inspired. Through exclusive interviews with cast and crew and access to the personal archives of Arthur P. Jacobs, producer and originator of the original film and all its spin-offs, Joe Russo and Larry Landsman present a fascinating, in-depth look at the entire Apes canon, featuring: Rare, behind-the-scenes photographs Details on special effects and make-up Story and screenplay developments On-the-set changes and post-production edits Behind-the-scenes anecdotes A chapter on Tim Burton's "reimagining" of the classic Planet of the ApesThe book also serves as an invaluable reference volume on Hollywood filmmaking and the many personalities who are part of the legend and lore of this outstanding adventure series. The most comprehensive guide available, Planet of the Apes Revisited vividly recreates the history, the sticky studio politics, and the fascinating creative process that resulted in this unprecedented science fiction phenomenon.

Customer Reviews:

An Enjoyable Read.......2007-03-22

I enjoyed reading this book for its interesting information from a number of the participants in the making of the Apes movies. It is a good companion to the recently released ultimate DVD collection.

I give it 4 of 5 stars because it lacks in-depth analysis of the ideas in the films and comparison to other projects, but you can't have everything in one book. I applaud the authors for putting together what they did.

Awesome! Best Apes Fan Book Ever Written!.......2006-04-26

This book is great! It covers every aspect of all of the apes movies, including Burton's, the TV series, and the Saturday morning cartoon. It includes quotes and facts that are amazing. It's an easy read, yet it's got some meat to it. I loved reading about the script developments and alternate endings that have been discussed for all of the movies. It's got some great pictures too! Great book, awesome price!

Don't take your stings paws off this book........2006-04-22

This is the most comprehensive book I have come across on Planet of the Apes. The book covers everything from concept to the TV series (both live action and animated). If you are a fan of the franchise or a movie buff this book will detail how a franchise made its way through the studio process. You won't be dissappointed with this book.

A great book about a great series.......2005-07-05

Informative, with lots of behind-the-scenes information and pictures, this book is a must-have for any Planet Of The Apes fan. I enjoyed the information on alternate scripts (and wished there had been MORE of this information, but that's assuming that more even exists), and liked that the authors included some of the original reviews for the films -- a nice touch. Several of the cast and crew were interviewed for the book, and the book itself is well written. A good read.

Fascinating look at a pop culture phenomenon.......2003-07-17

"Planet of the Apes Revisited" is by Joe Russo and Larry Landsman, with Edward Gross. The authors chronicle the behind-the-scenes story of the making of the "Planet of the Apes" films and TV series. The book also includes a chapter on Tim Burton's reimagined "Apes" film.

The book's intro notes that the authors had "complete and total access" to the archives of late "Apes" producer Arthur P. Jacobs; furthermore, many actors and behind-the-scenes talents were interviewed for the project. This in-depth research really pays off in this engrossing, well-written narrative. The book is enriched with many quotes from cast and crew and a wealth of photographs.

Book Description

Charlton Heston is perhaps most famous for his portrayal of Moses in Cecil B. DeMille's epic The Ten Commandments and for his Academy Award-winning performance in the 1959 classic Ben-Hur. Throughout his long career, Heston used his cinematic status as a powerful moral force to effect social and political change. "From My Cold, Dead Hands" examines how Heston evolved into a major American political figure.

Heston has campaigned for both Democratic and Republican candidates, marched in support of black civil rights, served as the president of the Screen Actors Guild, helped shape policy for the National Endowment for the Arts, and served as president of the National Rifle Association. Disillusioned with the Democrats, Heston formally registered with the Republican Party in the 1980s, but he argued that the decision was in keeping with his longtime advocacy of individual rights.

"From My Cold, Dead Hands" is far more than a biography--it is a chronicle of the resurgence of American conservative thought and, in particular, the birth of neoconservatism. Emilie Raymond convincingly argues that conservatives owe a great deal to Heston: his image of morality, individualism, and masculinity lent their movement credibility with a larger public, and he effectively campaigned for conservative candidates and causes. Meanwhile, Heston paved the way for many of today's Hollywood activists, using his popularity and image to fuel and legitimize his political activities.

A balanced study of Charlton Heston and his work offscreen, "From My Cold, Dead Hands" neither glorifies nor maligns Heston but provides an engaging account of how he propelled his personal beliefs into the political mainstream of America.

Customer Reviews:

Praise for a man who is obviously demented.........2007-02-28

I thought C. heston was one of the great actors in the world, and I still like Ben-Hur and El Cid and the 10 Commnadments very much..but Heston's stands on issues such as the NRA and gay rights are fascist at the very best.

He took a turn in his life thinking he could be an intellectual..a huge mistake..he was a good actor, he knew that much about himself, that he could dsraw aude=iences in with his swagger and heroic gesturing. But when he stepped out of the screen's protective proceniums, he showed his low voltage mind.

His Altzheimer's Disease is very sad, but the latter part of his life, beyond Touch of Evil, and Will Penny is even sadder.

A tragic case.

The making of a cultural conservative.......2007-01-01

Raymond's book is an excellent example of the study of a star formed by his cultural circumstances and historical forces. Heston has often been unjustifiably vilified in the recent past for his unpopular views to the detriment of his acting achievements. This book reveals that Heston was not alone in his rightward swing since it reveals him, along with Irving Kristol and Gertrude Himmelfarb, as liberal conservatives who belonged to the Democratic Party until historical forces changed their alignment. In many ways, they remained true to their beliefs while the Democratic Party changed from its conservative Eisenhower-Kennedy roots into Johnson Great Society that these people could not accept.

For those interested in social change in American society, this book is a very revealing treatment and explains much of what has happened during the last forty years. My only complaint is that Raymond has focussed on a limited amount of Heston films and has not examined others such as the Cold War western ARROWHEAD (1952) and THE CALL OF THE WILD where the Heston character undergoes a crisis of masculinity in one scene. It is easy to denigrate the actor as Michael Moore did unfairly in his interview in BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE where he appeared oblivious to the actors failing health and his recent operation. During Whoopi Goldberg's unjustly short-lived TV talk show, she did not take the easy option of making the actor look like a fool but spoke to him in a meaningful conversation without having any hidden agenda. It is a shame Raymond does not cite this in the book which is a valuable cultural study of a star who engaged in activist neo-conservative politics. While it is easy to sneer at his now outmoded roles and jeer at his Alzheimer's diagnosis as did George Clooney, it is much more challenging to understand the man and his beliefs in an objective manner. Raymond has risen to the challenge in a book which has several significant insights but could have been much better if more of the star's films had been covered against the background of the changing social and historical forces documented in this valuable work.

A true American who would fit right in with our Founders.......2006-11-10

Anyone who thinks of Himself/Herself a Patriot needs to read this book. Anyone who doesn't needs to read it to find out why they need to be. This is the greatest country in the world, and if we wish it to stay great and free, we have to get involved, or what we take for granted will slip away. The modern media blames America first, finds fault, and betrays all that countless patriots who have given their all that we might live we do today. Why do peoples of the world see us as the beacon of hope, and risk everything to come here? You'll find the answers in Mr. Heston's book, and what we must do to pass what we have, on to our children, and generations to come.

almost TOO fair.......2006-10-02

Ms. Raymond goes all out to prove Heston a "principled" conservative -- and yes, they do exist, even in this day of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush and Foley. Much of the information is very interesting. Amazingly, though, she does not seem to know of the use Michael Moore made of Heston in his film "Bowling for Columbine," which is the indelible image that most of us have in mind when we think of Charlton Heston. Was this ignorance, or just kindness to an old man suffering from dementia?

Indeed, Raymond does not seem to wonder whether Heston's whole NRA shill was a product of early Alzheimer's, a topic that it would seem to me needs addressing, if only to shoot it down.

For the most part, this is a strong book. But the omissions show.

Charlton Heston's Hollywood: 50 Years in American Film

Average customer rating:

Great book!!!

Charlton Heston's Hollywood: 50 Years in American Film
Charlton Heston , and Jean-Pierre Isbouts
Manufacturer: GT Publishing Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Entertainers | Arts & Literature | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

History & Criticism | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1577193571

Customer Reviews:

Great book!!!.......2002-02-13

If you love the "Old Hollywood", you'll love this!!! Great stories and pictures

Average customer rating:

Great Book!!!

The Films of Charlton Heston
Jeff Rovin
Manufacturer: Lyle Stuart
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

General | Foreign Languages | Reference | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0806505613

Customer Reviews:

Great Book!!!.......2002-12-31

For all of Charlton Heston fans--this is one of the greatest books ever written concerning Mr. Heston's films!

Jeff Rovin has done an outstanding job with this book. Not only does it go in detail about Mr. Heston's films it is loaded with photos.

This is a MUST read for any Heston-fan. Buy it NOW!
MonaK

The films of Charlton Heston
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The films of Charlton Heston
John Williams
Manufacturer: Greenhaven Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Textbook Binding
ASIN: 0912616806

Hollywood: 50 Years In American Film
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Hollywood: 50 Years In American Film
Jean-Pierre Isbouts Charlton Heston
Manufacturer: GT Publishing, NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000KA4NY4

Charlton Heston, Jack Nicholson ([Seminars / American Film Institute)
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Charlton Heston, Jack Nicholson ([Seminars / American Film Institute)
Charlton Heston
Manufacturer: Center for Advanced Film Studies
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0007B6TH0

Charlton Heston: An American Film Institute Seminar on his work (Seminars / American Film Institute)
Average customer rating:
Charlton Heston: An American Film Institute Seminar on his work (Seminars / American Film Institute)
Charlton Heston
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0007B6THA

Clock Tower II: The Struggle Within
Average customer rating:

Best things come in small packages

This book is awesome

Clock Tower II: The Struggle Within
J. Douglas Arnold , and Mark Elies
Manufacturer: Sandwich Islands Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
Video & Electronic Games | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
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Clock Tower II (2): The Struggle Within

Clock Tower 3

Haunting Ground

ASIN: 1884364284

Book Description

CLOCK TOWER II: THE STRUGGLE WITHIN OFFICIAL SURVIVAL GUIDE Get this official, full color book covering all three Scenarios with in-depth, room-by-room maps and strategies, hints and tips plus complete walkthroughs to get to each and every ending in Clock Tower II. A bonus chapter covers the first Clock Tower adventure for PlayStation.

Customer Reviews:

Best things come in small packages.......1999-12-04

Even though I am a jaded gamer, I was rather impressed with this particular book despite its small size. The book looked like a joke when I found it on the store shelf, it is small and thin compared to your usual videogame cheat books from Prima and the usual suspects. But never judge a book by its cover... and its size.

The book is printed in full-color on glossy pages. Besides the architect's map of the rooms, you also get the gamer's view of each room - they had to combine several screen shots because the game camera never shows you the whole room, some hard work was definitely done here. All doorways or interactive objects are clearly designated with numbers and a full chart explains in detail what can be done or where the door leads to. These visual aids really help, especially if you've been frustrated with the text-based FAQs/walkthrus floating around the Internet.

For those impatient to read through the details, you can jump ahead towards the end of the book for a cut-to-the-chase walkthru. The walkthru tells you exactly what to do without skipping any steps or throwing in red herrings that you don't need. I managed to finish the First Chapter in about 30 minutes using the walkthru. The writing was concise, clear, and easy to understand.

The walkthru gives you the best of the multiple possible endings, and the book also tells you what conditions NOT to meet in order to get the other "bad" endings. Unlike game books for the major releases (such as the Resident Evil games) with the pressure of deadlines, this book is, as far as I can tell, free of errors or clues based on the Japanese original that have become unreliable due to American version changes.

It is clear that this book was being created by people who knows what they are doing and love their job, too. In the intro pages of the book, they tell you the game's origins on the Super Famicom and how one of the PlayStation releases was never ported for the U.S. market. You even get a bonus walkthru for the first Clock Tower game, now that's what I call getting more bang for your buck!

The backcover of the book has a bio for the authors, here's an interesting bit that might help you decide to buy this book if you have either the first or second game: "Mark wants to buy a truck, so please help him by purchasing this book." :)

This book is awesome.......1999-06-25

I read this book and it helped me to play the game. I like to play games because they are fun to play. I have not played clock tower 2 yet but I think that I will like it just as much as Tomba because Tomaba was a fun game, almost as fun as that game I made. That game I made was really fun because I read the clock tower 2 book and that helped me make my game. If your looking to make your own game I would strongly recomend you buy this book! Sometimes when I am reading this book I get really scared and I put the book down and start to cry. I dont like to cry because then my dad makes fun of me and I dont like it when he makes fun of me because it is not fun. And that is my review of Tomba aka the greatest game ever made THE END

The Servant Leader: Unleashing the Power of Your People (Kellogg)
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The Servant Leader: Unleashing the Power of Your People (Kellogg)
Robert P. Neuschel
Manufacturer: Northwestern University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Leadership | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
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The 360 Degree Leader: Developing Your Influence from Anywhere in the Organization

The Servant Leader: How to Build a Creative Team, Develop Great Morale, and Improve Bottom-Line Performance

Servant Leader

Executive Intelligence: What All Great Leaders Have

Good to Great and the Social Sectors: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great

ASIN: 0810123398

Book Description

Weaving together personal experience and wilderness lore, this poetic journey through Alaska and Alaskan history is "a potent map of love and loss and how we find our way back home through the landscape of the heart" (Terry Tempest Williams).

Customer Reviews:

Disappearance Discovered.......2000-05-27

I found this book quite by accident in an old stack of magazines and newspaper clippings about Alaska. Thumbing through it, I became intrigued by the style of writing, the choice of subject and the author's method of interspersing personal memoir with historical and literary fact. For those who have read the writings of and by the Arctic explorers and the Alaskan sourdoughs, this is a book for you. Very introspective and yet not too personal. Really tends to get you thinking about those who have been lost and never found. I'm glad I found this book and would encourage you to discover it also.

read it.......1998-08-11

I loved this book. I would recommend it to anyone who cares about life and about literature.

A Remarkable Memoir and History.......1998-07-06

Notes on Disappearances: A Map

As someone who once lived in Alaska and liked good books, I could never understand why our state didn't produce more of them. Apart from Robert Service and a few essayists (Joe McGinnis, John McPhee), few talented writers have made Alaska their subject, and even fewer have handled it successfully. It is a melancholy commentary on Alaska that the most faithful representation of the state in the Lower 48 was the television show Northern Exposure.

Although the state has many dedicated writers, few have written material that was regarded as exceptional. Although many luminaries have visited, few were impressed with the home team. I found this particularly frustrating because other small, cold, places - Iceland or Denmark, for example - had developed rich and distinct literary traditions.

Doubly frustrating because the chance was there. You can't do regular literature in Alaska. Something about the place resists anything conventional. The problems an author might write about in say, Spokane, seem out of place or mis-scaled when set in Alaska. (This intractability extends far beyond literature - experienced mountain climbers from elsewhere are routinely killed in Alaska, talented pilots from the Lower 48 crash there, perfectly good ships sink off its shores.)

But this problem is also an opportunity, for the artist willing to go for broke. To succeed, she would have to invent new tools and take a radically different approach from the authors of the Lower 48. To misuse an analogy from Updike, the successful Alaskan author can't hope to hug the shore - she must build her own boat, and head straight out to the sea, with all the risks and rewards that entails.

Sheila Nickerson, a Juneau resident who was the state's poet laureate from 1977 to 1981, has taken up the challenge. The book is a history and a memoir. The history she reports is full of dangerous projects and unexplained disappearances. She dedicates long passages to great vanishings in the far north, from the! Franklin Expedition of the 19th century to congressmen Nick Begich and Hale Boggs in the early 1970s. But mostly Nickerson reports smaller vanishings: An old man gets off a ferry in Juneau and is never heard from again. A young man walks up a heavily-travelled trail and vanishes. A colleague disappears on a flight:

"Kent Roth, a fishery biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, has gone down with two brothers and two friends on a flight from Yakutat to Anchorage. It is an immense area, one that has swallowed people from the earliest times of its recorded history."

Throughout the book Nickerson intersperses her own story with this disappearance and the ensuing search. She also reports on the stacatto interruption of accidental death that is the hallmark of day-to-day life in Alaska:

"Flipping through search-and-rescue news releases at the Coast Guard headquarters at the federal building in Juneau, I quickly find a terrible sameness to the stories. The reports usualy continue from three to five days. If the case is large, or unusual, reports continue for a week or even two weeks. Then, for the most part, there is blankness."

Observing that the Alaskan Shamen were wiped out by protestant missionaries, she rushes to fill the void with any spiritual tool that can find purchase - the tarot, feng shui, dreamwork, bird messengers, ghost stories from her childhood. She is impatient with the stern, inscrutable Protestant God (perhaps her distant and angry father, who ultimately disinherited her, has something to do with this). Ironically, this is one place where that stern patriarch seems plausible. Such a God is a mere curiosity in a literary, affluent place like New York, Paris, or Peking. But He fits well where nature kills suddenly, unexpectedly, and arbitrarily. Nickerson never goes there - if that's the deal, she doesn't want it.

Only late in the book does she hint that she sees the awful possibility that there is no order, spiritual or otherwise, to it all:

&quot! ;There is a framed original chart from the Cook expedition to Alaska in 1778 - Cook's last before he turned south to Hawaii and death at the hand of native Hawaiians. The chart, in pencil, was executed either by Cook or by Master William Bligh... It is a working chart of Unalaska Island, out in the Aleutians, made during the summer as Cook and his men headed north to Icy Cape, at the edge of the Frozen Sea. There, just off the coast of the island, in a faint but elegant hand, this notation:

'All this 30' west of the truth' "

But even when her spiritual guides fail her (perhaps I should write 'especially'), the book marches powerfully on, because it is not driven by a spiritual force, but by Nickerson's relentless intellectual engagement. She becomes discouraged, but she never gives up. When one line of attack breaks down, she shifts to another.

It would be unfair to try to say this book has succeeded or failed. As with most Alaskan enterprises, success is a relative thing. A successful Alaskan expedition is one in which no one gets killed. Nickerson is generous with partial credit to explorers who got home with at least some of their shipmates. She has succeeded well on those terms - she's built her boat, gone to sea, and come back.

She succeeds in other ways as well. The whole book is pitched at a high level, far higher than Alaskans expect of local writers. Nickerson's full of talent - she writes in a clear direct voice, and, her protests notwithstanding, she has a pretty good idea of what she's trying to accomplish. This is the kind of a book that might be viewed someday as a cornerstone of Alaskan literature, one of the moments when Alaskans started writing things the rest of the world wanted to read.

Only Nickerson knows if the literary achievement was accompanied by a spiritual one. Alaska is particularly unkind to those who come seeking spiritual development. The sea and wilderness seem to have a special fondness for killing sojourners and utopians. It is a place where what does no! t destroy you tries to cripple you so it can get you next time. As McGinnis discovered, there are a lot of damaged people in those bars and cabins. In this game, holding your own is a big victory.

I think Nickerson held her own.

Sheila Nickerson, Disappearances: A Map, New York: Harcourt Brace, 1996.

This book is as much a meditation on love as it is on loss........1998-03-17

This book opens with the disappearance of one of Nickerson's colleagues in a Cessna 340A flying out of Yakutat on a foggy May evening. Nickerson writes with a splendid compassion of the way the love of family, friends and community assures that a lost man will never be a lost soul; she describes not only the enormous risks undertaken to search for survivors, but the courage of people who continue to love and have faith long after tragedy has shattered their lives. Nickerson, a poet, novelist, editor and teacher, is also a wife and mother whose family - mountain climbers and sailors - are themselves explorers, and she writes of necessity with empathy no mere spectator could achieve. It is not hard to imagine Nickerson, seeing tragedy unfold so close by, make a decision to bring the stories of those who have disappeared before readers' eyes - to remember those who have gone, but also, as a testament to the families who remain. She integrates stories of her personal life with historical sagas and also, deftly, brings into focus the horizons of Juneau's own magnificent but dangerous horizons. Reading "Disappearance: A Map" is like holding a collection of maps with ever more detailed views. You can step back, and see Alaska from the distance of headlines and stark topography, or you can move in closer and see lives as they emerge from these stories. I would urge you to read further into Nickerson's work. Her novel, "In Rooms of Falling Rain" evokes the troubling landscape of a community in Colorado struggling with storm and confusion. Like "Disappearance" it is immensely suspenseful, far more so than most books which fall specifically into the genre of mystery writing. When a writer of Nickerson's discipline and intelligence creates fiction the pages of the story turn swiftly. But do not fail to read her poetry, either. "On Why the Quilt-Maker Became a Dragon", with gorgeous illustrations by Judy Cooper; "Feast of the Animals", graced with exquisite wood engravings by Dale DeArmond; "To the Waters and the Wild", "Song of the Pinewife" and the sumptuous "In a Spring Garden" are written with the clear eye of the great poet: passionate, elegant, direct, wise. The more I read of Nickerson the more I want to read. Sheila Nickerson was the poet Laureate of Alaska from 1977 to 1981, and her books should be given pride of place on the shelf. She has not hidden in the sanctuary of the university: instead, she has brought her reverence for the word into prisons and children's schoolrooms and the pages of the journals she has edited. The literature and art of Alaska are among its most enduring treasures and these books will bring honor to your home.

A book to be snowed in with!.......1997-04-17

Sheila Nickenson presents Alaska as a vast unforgiving terra incognita where death awaits the missing. Her essays on the lost--and sometimes found--of Alaska demonstrate emphatically it's not a place to be stranded in. For example, the immense interior glaciers offer no quarter. Even with today's sophisticated technology, the lost remain lost. Their bodies are not found; their fates are known to God. Most of the modern day missing are victims of plane crashes. (There are parts of our 49th state that are only accessible by airplane. Juneau, where the author resides, is one example.)

In earlier times, the late 1700s to the earlier part of the 20th century, the missing were members of expeditions and the Navy. Many of the dead sailors were "harvested" by the Cold Reaper in the flower of their youth.

Interspersed among the essays for the dead are meditations on: Sheila's life in Juneau, her publishing experience as a poet, her New England childhood, the "politics" of teaching Alaskan prisoners, the joys and insights of educating children about poetry, being a mother and wife, the flowers of Alaska--what flourishes and what perishes--and her personal ordeal about a missing friend

Disappearance: A Map - A Meditation on Death and Loss in the High Latitudes
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Disappearance: A Map - A Meditation on Death and Loss in the High Latitudes
Sheila Nickerson
Manufacturer: Harcourt Brace & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000KPD3UY

Book Description

No history of the war in Europe has ever taken into account the actions of the men of the US 23rd Special Troops. These men took part in over 22 deception operations against the German Army. Some of these operations had tremendous impact upon how the battles in Europe were fought. The men who participated in these actions were sworn to secrecy for 50 years, and are only now willing to talk about their role.

The 23rd was composed of four main units. A signal deception unit to broadcast fake radio signals, an engineer camouflage unit to set up rubber dummies of tanks and trucks, a combat engineer unit to construct emplacements and provide local security, and a sonic deception company. The sonic unit was developed to fool German listening posts by playing audio recordings of various sounds, such as tanks moving up or bridges being built.

The 23rd was the only tactical deception unit of the American Army in World War ll combining all aspects of deception. This book also covers the birthplace of sonic deception: the Army Experimental Station at Pine Camp; and their smaller sister unit, the 3133rd Sonic Deception company that saw action for 14 days in Italy.

Jonathan Gawne is a leading military historian and is the author of the best selling Spearheading D Day and The US Army Photo Album (both published by Histoire and Collections and available from Casemate) as well as books in the Greenhill Books "GI Series". He has contributed articles to numerous military magazines. He lives in Framingham, MA.

Customer Reviews:

The whole story and nothing but the story.......2005-03-04

Jonathan Gawne is without a doubt one of America's leading military historians and is the author of many amazing books. The research done for this book was clearly extensive, and there is no doubt in your mind that when you're done reading this, you know the whole story.

A fine read!.......2004-09-11

Just when you think everything has been written on the US Army in WW2, Jon Gawne does it again by not only writing on a previously unreported subject, but doing so in a very interesting way!

"Ghosts of the ETO" outlines a unique unit dedicated to fooling the Germans on the battlefield. Now a recognized part of Army Psychological warfare (PSYOP) tactics, the idea was unheard of with the Army in the 1940s. These PSYOP pioneers had among their numbers the most creative and intelligent people the Army could find. For once, "Military Intelligence" was NOT a contradiction in terms. In true Army fashion, these troops were used for duties that were a waste of their talents, such as broadcasting propaganda. But in the end, the Army realized the usefulness that deception troops could play on a mechanized battlefield. Their ability to mislead the enemy into thinking certain units were either there or not there (the opposite of wherever they really were) cannot be underestimated today. The truly sad thing is that until recently, few had ever heard of these pioneers in strategic deception.

Oddly, several books have come out at the same time on this subject. I have read them all, and "Ghosts of the ETO" is far and clear the best of these. Gawne's writing style is unique among many of his peers; he's actually interesting to read. He doesn't get bogged down into what color the loudspeakers were or other trivial facts that most readers couldn't care less about. He has the ability to know when to delve into details of equipment and such, and more importantly, when NOT to. My only complaint is that Gawne couldn't locate more information in the archives when he researched this book, but due to the secrative nature of the unit's operations, this comes as no surprise. "Ghosts of the ETO" provides a fresh, new look at a subject I would have thought had been written to death. And it also will illustrate to future generations that the Army of 1944 was no slow, plodding green monster with no regard for intelligent actions. Far from it. WW2 was the opening stages of what we today consider the "modern" Army. And I for one am glad that Gawne decided to write what is, to date, the best history of this fine unit.

Amazing!.......2002-10-16

This is an amazing book.

I bought two others on this subject that came out recently and was very disapointed that they were essentially tales told by old soldiers. This one doesn't just talk about the operations, it shows where, when and what each secret operation was.

Period photos and paperwork are also pictured to back up the claims about what this unit did. Also are organizational charts, roster of officers, and my favorite, an essay about possible connections between Patton and decption. Now there's a book I want someone to write!

Everyone always advertises their books as 'never before seen' and "unknown stories" and all that hooey. This book delivers. Possibly the most important new book on WW2 I have read in the past few years.

A simply fascinating military history.......2002-10-10

Ghosts Of The Eto: American Tactical Deception Units In The European Theater 1944-1945 by military historian and expert Jonathan Gawne, provides the reader with an informed and informative look at the 23rd Special Troops, who fought the German army at the end of World War II using deception as an effective military tactic. Telling the compelling story of courageous and cunning soldiers through declassified memos and the testimony of survivors, Ghosts Of The Eto is highly recommended reading as being a simply fascinating military history of a hidden aspect of World War II that would have a profound and lasting influence on military strategy and tactics.

Book Description

In the mid-1970s and early 1980s, several feminist theorists began developing alternatives to the traditional methods of scientific research. The result was a new theory, now recognized as Standpoint Theory, which caused heated debate and radically altered the way research is conducted. The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader is the first anthology to collect the most important essays on the subject as well as more recent works that bring the topic up-to-date. Leading feminist scholar and one of the founders of Standpoint Theory, Sandra Harding brings together the a prestigious list of scholars--Dorothy Smith, Donna Haraway, Patricia Hill Collins, Nancy Hartsock and Hilary Rose--to not only showcase the most influential essays on the topic but to also highlight subsequent developments of these approaches from a wide variety of disciplines and intellectual and political positions. The Reader will be essential reading for feminist scholars.

Amazon.com

The vast, sere Colorado Desert of southern California, on the verge of the coastal range east of San Diego, is a forbidding landscape. Its sandy flats are dotted with cattle skulls, its skies with vultures, its maps with names like Hellhole Canyon, Devil's Ditch, and Bone Wash. Yet, writes Lawrence Hogue in this lively natural history of the area, which includes Anza-Borrego State Park and the Salton Sea, the desert's fearful aspect has not kept fellow travelers from the place, seeking solitude, enlightenment, or gold.

Hogue examines the lifeways of the original desert peoples, the Cahuilla and Kumeyaay, who gathered staples like mesquite beans and farmed in scattered oases, and who taught the first Europeans who came to the desert essential survival skills. He also considers the history of those who came after them: cattle ranchers, miners, the odd bandit, and, later, the American military, which has used the desert as a training and proving ground. "The Cahuilla creation story is still going on," Hogue writes of the shattered landscape. "It is as if God has been driven out of this place, hounded out by howitzers and bombs and missiles."

All those armaments notwithstanding, much of the Colorado Desert remains little changed by the human presence. "At this scale of things," Hogue concludes, "the desert is truly eternal, far older and deeper than I can comprehend." His book is a well-crafted, learned companion for any voyage into that arid country. --Gregory McNamee

Book Description

"All the wild and lonely places, the mountain springs are called now. They were not lonely or wild places in the past days. They were the homes of my people." - Chief Francisco Patencio, the Cahuilla of Palm Spring.

The Anza-Borrego Desert on California's southern border is a remote and harsh landscape, what author Lawrence Hogue calls "a land of dreams and nightmares, where the waking world meets the fantastic shapes and bent forms of imagination." In a country so sere and rugged, it's easy to imagine that no one has ever set foot there - a wilderness waiting to be explored. Yet for thousands of years, the land was home to the Cahuilla and Kumeyaay Indians, who, far from being the "noble savages" of European imagination, served as active caretakers of the land that sustained them, changing it in countless ways and adapting it to their own needs as they adapted to it.

In All the Wild and Lonely Places, Lawrence Hogue offers a thoughtful and evocative portrait of Anza-Borrego and of the people who have lived there, both original inhabitants and Spanish and American newcomers - soldiers, Forty-Niners, cowboys, canal-builders, naturalists, recreationists, and restorationists. We follow along with the author on a series of excursions into the desert, each time learning more about the region's history and why it calls into question deeply held beliefs about "untouched" nature. And we join him in considering the implications of those revelations for how we think about the land that surrounds us, and how we use and care for that land.

"We could persist in seeing the desert as an emptiness, a place hostile to humans, a pristine wilderness," Hogue writes. "But it's better to see this as a place where ancient peoples tried to make their homes, and succeeded. We can learn from what they did here, and use that knowledge to reinvigorate our concept of wildness. Humans are part of nature; it's still nature, even when we change it."

Customer Reviews:

Beautifully written, illustrated and diversely fascinating........2007-04-03

I enjoyed getting to know more of the culture and practices (both past and present) of area Native American groups: the Kumeyaay, Cahuilla and more briefly other groups in the Baja and SoCal area. The case is made repeatedly for an inclusive view of a desert "wilderness" as more than just a park untouched/left alone, but skillfully stewarded by the desert's first human inhabitants.

Must-read for Californians.......2004-09-25

There must be more biomass contained in the paper that makes up all the copies of all the books in print about the American desert than there is left in the same desert.

A decade after his pancreas gave out, Ed Abbey's books fairly fly off the shelves. Terry Tempest Williams seems to come out with a new book every several months. From lyrical evocations of some guy's weekend hikes in the Superstitions to the yearly raft of new books on running the Colorado, a legion of tomes from the masterful to the mediocre seems to have said just about everything there is to say about the hyper-arid west. Nonetheless, new titles seem to hit the shelves every time you turn around. If John the Baptist had come out of the wilderness into a modern writers' workshop, I do believe he would have been contracted, in print and remaindered before the last locust leg stopped twitching in his beard.

In a less crowded field, Lawrence Hogue's All The Wild and Lonely Places; Journeys in a Desert Landscape might have attracted the attention it deserves when it came out in 2000. It's fairly popular in the San Diego area, which makes sense, given that most of the action takes place within sight of Anza-Borrego State Park. But I've not seen it in nature bookstores north of Mount San Jacinto.

That's a shame, for Hogue has offered up an intensely important book, relevant far outside the sun-drenched confines of San Diego and Imperial counties. All the Wild and Lonely Places may appear to be a collection of musings by a veteran desert hiker - and it is, one of the most appealing such in some time - but it's also a stealth polemic. It's not much of a stretch to call Hogue's work one of the most important books of the last decade on California's environment.

That's not to say the book isn't a pleasant, diverting read: it is amply so. Hogue's matter-of-fact voice and intimate familiarity with the land are refreshing, and he doesn't spend a lot of time using the desert as an excuse for introspection. Rather, he spends his time (and ours) trying to find out just how the Anza-Borrego area came to be the way it is. A quick tour of the land's tectonic origins and botanic paleontology sets the stage for the subject in which the book finds its true strength: the history of human interactions with - and attitudes about - the land.

European colonizers brought much more than cattle, cholera and Christianity to California when they arrived here: they also brought with them a distinct collection of attitudes about wilderness. Originally a negative, fearful abstraction whose sole value lay in the resources that could be civilized out of it, wilderness was partly redefined by nineteenth and twentieth century environmentalists into a source of inspiration, communion, meaning. Other than the signs at the boundary fence, there's not much to distinguish the new, benevolent wilderness from the menacing version feared by our great great great grandparents. Both are valuable for what can be taken away from them, whether timber or solitude, gold or grandeur. And both are, by definition, untouched by people; outside the walls of human society.

Problem is, in California - and elsewhere in the west - it weren't necessarily so. The summits of high mountains may well have been avoided as sacred places. It's hard to picture people getting much use out of wide alkaline playas. But most of the rest of California - valley grassland, Sierra forest, coastal oak savanna - was intensively managed by the people living here. This isn't news: Kat Anderson and Thomas Blackburn devoted their book Before the Wilderness to these practices almost a decade ago. Native Californians set fires to clear encroaching brush, they moved plants from one place to another, they built dams to turn small creeks into seasonal wetlands. Very little of the state was unaffected by native land management practices. There wasn't much wilderness in the state until the white folks brought it here.

Hogue writes at some length about the Kumeyaay, whose traditional territory stretched from the coast to the Algodones sand dunes, and across what's now the Mexican border well into Baja California, as well as about the Cahuilla, the Kumeyaay's northern neighbors.

By regularly burning over their land, the Kumeyaay maintained thriving grasslands now in retreat throughout the southland. (A wetter climatic cycle that ended around 1900 probably played a role as well.) They may have introduced the "wild" California fan palms to the oases they now grace, bringing seeds or seedlings from Baja. They hunted and killed the occasional puma - after giving the cat fair warning - thereby helping sustain populations of the now-endangered peninsular bighorn.

They also committed acts of agriculture. This will come as surprising news to those of us brought up on the canonical observation that California Indians never farmed, aside from the irrigated gardens of the Yuman tribes. The Kumeyaay didn't plow the earth, but they did engage in a form of no-till agriculture that might as well have been taught by Masanobu Fukuoka. They planted grasses, harvested and saved seeds, and planted again the next season, slowly breeding large-seeded cultivars about as wild as red winter wheat.

This is the landscape that the colonists found. Calling it a wilderness is a bit of a stark judgment of the prior inhabitants. When you call a forest a wilderness, despite the clear fact that it's been intensively tended, you're saying something about the people that tended it. If it's land untouched by human hands, then clearly the hands managing it have been something less than human. We moved into this house and said the builder never existed.

Gary Nabhan, who for years has written about the Tohono O'odham and their neighbors in the Sonoran Desert, tells of the oasis at Quitobaquito, once a thriving settlement right on the US-Mexico line, now part of Organ Pipe National Monument. When the Tohono O'odham lived there, the spring-fed pond was a spectacularly diverse assemblage of bird and plant life. Under the protection of the National Park Service, biodiversity has declined to the point that on a visit a few years back, I saw perhaps five bird species there in two hours. A similar oasis across the line in Mexico, still fringed by small O'odham family farm plots, still bears diversity like that Quitobaquito once hosted.

When the Kumeyaay, the facilitators of San Diego's biodiversity, were denied access to most of their land, says Hogue, that biodiversity likewise started to decline. Grazing cattle had something to do with that decline, of course, as did a litany of other environmental events Hogue catalogs. There's tamarisk, the bane of desert wetlands, imported as an ornamental windbreak and now sucking the life out of watercourses from Texas to Torrey Pines Reserve. The US military used part of the Anza-Borrego area for target practice; live ordnance is now a permanent addition to the landscape. Off-road vehicles scar much of what the Pentagon left alone, though an observer less charitable than Hogue might suggest that unexploded bombs pose a potential solution to that vector for damage.

The ferocity with which Anglo-Californians treated the landscape was reflected in their dealings with the Kumeyaay. Hogue gives a brief but compelling description of the Jacumba Massacre, sparked by a few missing cattle, a two-hour gun battle that may have killed a dozen or two natives, and certainly drove any survivors out of the Jacumba area. In an ironic twist, even belated attempts to protect the land compounded the damage to the Kumeyaay, who made up much of the ranching population barred from Anza-Borrego State Park a quarter century ago.

Though the material compels anger, Hogue is no browbeating ideologue. He's sympathetic to the white settlers who populated the land. That's sensible, as he's one of them.

He may not get that sympathy returned from all quarters. In a day when environmental activism is still informed by long-discarded ecological concepts such as the "balance of nature" and ecological "communities," pointing out the capricious, stochastic nature of environmental change in the Far West can earn you green detractors.

Nonetheless, the nature of nature in California has far less to do with stable climax forests and regular predator-prey cycles than would be the case in the Pine Barrens or the Schwartzwald. Out here, it's all landslides and flash floods, lakes drying into toxic chemical flats and rivers changing course. Hogue does a great job conveying the consequences of the last two in his chapter on the Salton Sea, avoiding the tempting easy answers. Do we spend billions to restore the accidental lake to non-toxicity, providing habitat for white pelicans and real estate speculators? Or do we let the sump dry up, sending the water to the critically ill Colorado River Delta? Either way, we may well be trying to make a decision that's best left to the river, which has filled the Salton Sea (Lake Cahuilla) at somewhat random intervals over the millennia, then changed course to let the sea turn to sun-baked mud.

We would do well to consider the native way of looking at this natural unpredictability, and Hogue's portrayal is an enjoyable shattering of common preconceptions on the subject. The most prevalent of those preconceptions is the one that leads people to speak of Indians in the past tense, but those native ways of looking at the land aren't entirely lost. The Kumeyaay Campo Environmental Protection Agency is restoring wetlands on tribal land using traditional techniques, and the plants and animals are responding. Far to the north, a consortium of tribes works to restore the Sinkyone Intertribal Park on the Lost Coast. The California Indian Basketweavers' Association is changing the way land managers use herbicides in wildlands throughout the state, and the Timbisha Shoshone may yet win the right to tend much of the landscape in their traditional territory in Death Valley National Park.

Mainstream environmentalists often ignore these initiatives, if they don't actively oppose them - as has been the case with the Timbisha. This is unfortunate. No one would be served if environmentalists uncritically adopted policies just because Indians said we should. But the least we can do is agree that the homebuilder exists.

We might even ask for a copy of the blueprints.

Almost all I ever wanted to know.......2000-10-20

Vastly expanded my consciousness regarding the desert I love. A beautifully written book based on a tremendous amount of personal experience, research, and soul searching.

Not too much, not too little.......2000-08-01

A near-perfect blend of anthropology, geology, human and natural history, it is the thorough overview of the Anza-Borrego Desert that I was looking for. There is no preaching or strong advocacy for either conservation or exploitation of the region, but rather a balanced presentation of the various viewpoints of a surprisingly large number of stakeholders. The easy-going tone and pacing make for an enjoyable read. There is a storytelling quality about the writing that drew and held my attention firmly but pleasantly. There was enough technical detail to flesh out the themes but not so much detail that I felt overwhelmed. The only exception was the chapter on the Salton Sea which included, perhaps necessarily, quite a bit of information on past and current politics regarding the handling of this unique area. While there were parts of the book that challenged my previous impression of the desert as "untouched" and "pristine" - and made me wonder if I really wanted that impression challenged - ultimately my attraction to the desert became more informed, not spoiled.

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