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Effective Conflict Management Tool

Managing Disagreement Constructively: Conflict Management in Organizations (Crisp Fifty-Minute Series)
Herbert S. Kindler
Manufacturer: Crisp Learning
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1560523832

Book Description

Step into a disagreement with the confidence that it will get resolved. The handy tips in this course help you diagnose conflict, prepare strategies to resolve it, and implement productive solutions. Handle conflict with more skill and confidence. Identify and resolve disagreement before it gets out of control. Learn the nine key approaches to managing disagreement.

Learning Objectives: To present basic principles of managing conflict. To point out inappropriate procedures in managing disagreement. To point out strategies that may work in managing disagreement.

Customer Reviews:

HR Manager.......2004-03-25

Provides the most comprehensive and practical tools for improving this vital people skill, managing conflict and disagreement constructively.

Effective Conflict Management Tool.......2000-11-26

This book is part of a Tools 4 Trainers Conflict Management series from the Center for Management Effectiveness. I recommend this book for anyone considering a nice intervention with managers dealing with conflict. It is a clear, easy to understand discussion of conflict, or disagreement, in a fun to follow format. This is a good start for someone thinking about doing more in this field. As a doctoral student in Organizational Psychology, this was a helpful addition to my potential toolkit.

Conflict Management: A Crisp Approach (Video / Book Program, Based on Managing Disagreement Constructively: Conflict Management in Organizations)

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Conflict Management: A Crisp Approach (Video / Book Program, Based on Managing Disagreement Constructively: Conflict Management in Organizations)
Mary Kay Beeby
Manufacturer: Crisp Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000LS6MKI

Product Description

Video Program includes Video (approx 25. minutes, Leader's Guide and 5 copies of "Managing Disagreement Constructively: Conflict Management in Organizations" by Herbert S. Kindler, Ph.D.

Customer Reviews:

Raising living standards.......2002-05-25

This book chronicles the life and legacy of a caring, vigilant doctor who ranks among Alaska's great leaders. Young Dr. C. Earl Albrecht arrived in Alaska during the Great Depression, the sole physician to a remote colony of impoverished farm families. At the Palmer colony he delivered babies, treated diseases, performed emergency surgery, built a new hospital, then raised money to keep the hospital open. He became Alaska's first full-time commissioner of health under territorial Gov. Gruening. Deeply concerned about the health of Alaska's Natives, he all but eradicated T.B. in the Bush, created programs to teach nutrition and sanitation in rural villages, and won the right for Natives to be treated at Alaska hospitals. He helped found The International Union for Circumpolar Health in 1967.
A great man - I'm glad that I read this fine biography.

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PHYSICS OF METEOR FLIGHT IN THE ATMOSPHERE
Ernst J. Opik
Manufacturer: Interscience New York
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0000CK77M

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Physics of meteor flight in the atmosphere (Interscience tracts on physics and astronomy)
Ernst Julius Opik
Manufacturer: Interscience Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006AVN32

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Physics of Meteor Flight in the Atmosphere Interscience Tracts on Physics and Astronomy No. 6
Ernst J. Opik
Manufacturer: Interscience Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000J40TG2

Book Description

There have been a number of recent advances in the area of green chemistry. This book contains some of the notable breakthroughs that have marked this science that is designed to reduce or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances. It addresses how recent advances in biocatalysis and biosynthesis can be used to make traditional chemical transformations more environmentally benign or, alternately, how it is inventing and discovering new chemical transformations that are intrinsically less hazardous. The new uses of known solvent systems as well as the exploration of new solvent systems is discussed in the context of its benefits both in terms of efficiency and environmental benefit. The area of designing safer chemicals provides some recent examples of how molecules as diverse as pesticides and dyes can be made more environmentally benign. This volume is part of a two-volume set devoted to promoting the concept of green chemistry. Each of these volumes will facilitate more widespread adoptions of these techniques by governments and chemical industry and lead to a greater overall understanding of green chemistry.

Green Chemistry: Frontiers in Benign Chemical Syntheses and Processes

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Green Chemistry: Frontiers in Benign Chemical Syntheses and Processes

Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

The history of environmental protection has dealt with hazardous substances by cleaning them up or treating them after the substances have formed. Green Chemistry, however, designs products and processes so that no hazardous materials are used or made in the first place. With applications from plastic to paints, from automobiles to pharmaceuticals, Green Chemistry is revolutionising science and industry and its impact on the environment.

Book Description

This book is a clear and informative introduction to cryptography and data protection - subjects of considerable social and political importance. It explains what algorithms do, how they are used, the risks associated with using them, and why governments should be concerned. Important areas are highlighted, such as Stream Ciphers, block ciphers, public key algorithms, digital signatures, and applications such as e-commerce. This book highlights the explosive impact of cryptography on modern society, with, for example, the evolution of the internet and the introduction of more sophisticated banking methods.

Customer Reviews:

covers the main ideas, with little maths needed.......2005-10-11

The book is good as befits its subtitle. Indeed, a very short introduction, with only a minimal evocation of maths background. But there is enough qualitative explanation so that you can understand the broad historical development. From the Caesar Cipher to a Simple Substitution Cipher to a Vigenere Square Cipher. Then, the text goes into modern ideas, all of which involve using computers to encrypt and decrypt. Notably the invention of the public key system. Truly quite different from all that preceded it.

There is also a brief foray into quantum computing. Here, it is mostly conceptual; discussing the possible potential, since current implementations are very rudimentary. The text has no mention of man in the middle attacks and how to guard against these. Pity. Because while this is a very hard attack to perform, if it can done, then it is very hard to defend against. One of the promises of quantum computing is that it inherently offers a simple detection, based on quantum interference by the attacker.

Customer Reviews:

Inside the gulag.......2006-11-10

This book shows what life was like in the gulag during Stalin's reign of terror. The short stories illustrate different aspects of life in Siberia and how little hope there was that anyone would survive in that place for 8 - 10 years. Amazingly, there is some humor. The human spirit can never be completely quenched. The author has a good writing style and conveys the horros of Kolyma.

"Like Auschwitz without the gas chambers...".......2006-08-29

is how Kolyma, one of the coldest of all the Soviet forced-labor camps, is described in one of the wonderfully written fifty-five short stories included in Shalamov's Kolyma Tales. The stories are typically autobiographical or based on actual events that the author experienced first hand during his 17 years in the Gulag system. From My First Tooth, a beating of Shalamov's which led to the loss of a tooth; to Tamara the [...], a camp dog, murdered by a soldier who gets his due; to Lend-Lease, the exposure of a mass grave of bodies frozen by the permafrost and forever preserved for all to see - the stories tell about the day to day struggles that millions of people went through, the brutal work itself, with almost impossible to achieve daily work quotas, starvation, the fight to stay alive with the constant threat of frostbite, scurvy, typhoid, tuberculosis and leprosy, among other diseases. The incessant squirming lice, working in temperatures colder than 40 degrees below zero without any heat and with improper clothing - feet often covered in rags and death (your own and that of your comrades) ever present. Prisoners informing on each other; women in fear of rape (from other prisoners and camp guards); self-mutilation to be relieved of work duty if only for a few days or weeks, followed by (much wanted) infection, possibly death and if not, then a longer sentence; interrogation and living in constant filth, sadness and despair was a way of life and death at Kolyma.

These unbelievably true stories are not nearly as long or as difficult to tackle as The Gulag Archipelago, and would read well together with Man is Wolf to Man, similar happenings told in a different format.

"Friendship is born neither of need nor of misfortune".......2006-03-31

Shalamov provides the perfect counterpoint for Solzhenitsyn-while Solzhenitsyn is bombastic, Shalamov is understated; while Solzhenitsyn is resolutely hopeful, Shalamov luxuriates in a sort of charred, cynical despair that is unusual in literature; and while Solzhenitsyn makes pretenses to be the voice of the Gulag, Shalamov can only speak for himself. Shalamov's stories are wrenching and vicious, the voice of single, recognizable human being faced with the entire murderous apparatus of the Gulag. The mere existence of the Kolyma Tales is astonishing. Shalamov was somehow able to draw genuine artistic inspiration from his years in the camps, and perhaps the style of the Tales themselves-detached, understated, ironic-is the only form that could survive such an extreme experience.

Another advantage Shalamov has over Solzhenitsyn is that readers are unlikely to mistake his stories for fully researched historical writing, a problem with the Gulag Archipelago. Both men were predominately artists, but Shalamov does not engage in the same type of social criticism and thus leaves himself less open to attack.

Bitter Truths.......2005-08-30

Prison literature has a long history in the Russian tradition, from Fyodor Dostoevsky's "House of the Dead" to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago" and "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich." Varlam Shalamov's "Kolyma Tales" are quite unique however. Though told in a documentary style reminiscent of the Classical historians, the stories have the precision, symbolism, and memorable characters that make for great literature. Even the repetitive subject matter and themes do not come across as "whining" or self-absorption; they are matter-of-fact, direct, and yet always subtle.

Perhaps one of the scariest tales in the collection is "The Golden Taiga"--depicting an indirect interrogation carried out from a bunk bed, that does not involve any authorities and hints at the sinister machinery of human relationships without any graphic description. Others, like the "The Apostle Paul", suggest the power of suffering in eradicating memory, and the tragegy of losing what is most sacred to the human spirit through just such loss.

This book is a must-read for any idealists who suppose that the Sickle and Hammer was the moral and reasonable alternative to Fascism in the early XXth Century. No one visits Shalamov's Kolyma without shuddering and feeling its sobering effects. The stories are quite convincing, convicting, and challenging--they are stocked with bitter truths, which are the antidote to the sentimentalism and intellectually irresponsible idealism that is characteristic of much political and social theory today. Good logic can very easily translate into good horror, and there is a very short leap from social contracts to Article 58! Centrists will like it, I suppose.

It's a great book.

An eerily entertaining title.......2005-08-04

I have purchased Shalamov's short story compilation in 1989 in Hungarian edition. The author's picture was on the back most probably an old camp photograph that struck me because in it he looked like a man having suffered a lot and being close to the end.

When I started reading them I wondered how could someone write stories in a way he did. He had no sensible emotion towards the players neither positive nor negative, yet I was moved by the stories.

I bought Kolyma Tales in English because it contained a wider compilation than the other edition (turned out later that it still did not contain several stories that the other version did; still I have to look for more?). Some new stories were equally as good as those in the other book, some were just a snapshot of a situation or short series of events. A few were tiring to read perhaps because of the many other ones that I read previously, I felt these somewhat less interesting. But the closing few stories are really good. On the other hand I miss very much "Course" from this compilation (Hungarian edition did contain it). This is the tale that helps us understand how and why Shalamov managed to survive.

It was interesting to compare the Hungarian text and the English text. I have found some minor differences at places. These were generally phrasing differences, that is, not the exact words were used (as if each translator had used different original text), but the meaning was achieved (still I'd be curious how it is really written in Russian). In particular, one example of this is in "Lawyers' Plot", when the guards and Andreev talk to reach other in a roadside buffet where they stopped for the night on the way to their destination, involving a third prisoner. There is even some extra words/sentences in this English version compared to the Hungarian one.

For those who have never read Shalamov's tales I strongly suggest buying and reading it. The typesetting of this book is very eye friendly enabling reading easy. And entertainment is guaranteed even if it is an eery one.

Kolyma Tales (IN RUSSIAN LANGUAGE) / ( )

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Kolyma Tales (IN RUSSIAN LANGUAGE) / ( )
Varlam V. T. , Varlam Shalamov , Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov , , and
Manufacturer: AST
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

All Russian Books | Russian | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 5170315333

Varlam Shalamov's "Kolyma Tales": A Formalist Analysis (Studies in Slavic Literature and Poetics 41)

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Varlam Shalamov's "Kolyma Tales": A Formalist Analysis (Studies in Slavic Literature and Poetics 41)
Nathaniel Golden
Manufacturer: Rodopi
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 904201198X

Book Description

This book analyses eleven of Varlam Shalamov's Kolyma Tales from a neo-Formalist perspective. The tales are a testament to Shalamov's seventeen years in Stalin's Gulags, and were written in an attempt to draw attention to this period in Soviet history. Nathaniel Golden has primarily utilised L. M. O'Toole's work Structure, Style and Interpretation in the Russian Short Story as the major basis for analysis, but has incorporated many other Formalist and indeed Structuralist methods.

The tales in each chapter are analysed by means of five major Formalist categories: Narrative Structure, Point of View, Fabula and Sujet, Characterisation and Setting. This process highlights many of Shalamov's ideas and motifs in the tales. He frequently uses techniques of estrangement and paradox to augment camp experience, reflecting his belief that there is no moral, emotional or spiritual gain in suffering. He habitually employs a `focaliser' to tell the tale from a near-death perspective and in consequence distances the author from events. His literary background is prominent within the tales, where he occasionally alludes to earlier Russian authors and their works to indicate the recurring nature of Man's fallibility against the Gulag background. His characters are often simply portrayed yet representative of flawed heroes and the baseness of human beings subjected to an existence in extremis. His settings are minimal, yet form a major part of his message: Man is compared to nature, but nature is powerful and able to regenerate itself, whereas Man's existence is temporary and futile.

This book therefore, shows that the Formalist approach is indeed still valid as a literary tool of analysis as well as showing that upon the 50th year of Stalin's death, Varlam Shalamov's time has arrived.

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Varlam Shalamov's Kolyma Tales: A Formalist Analysis.(Book review): An article from: The Modern Language Review
Justin Doherty
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000WQ0OO4
Release Date: 2007-10-01

Book Description

This digital document is an article from The Modern Language Review, published by Thomson Gale on October 1, 2006. The length of the article is 911 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Varlam Shalamov's Kolyma Tales: A Formalist Analysis.(Book review)
Author: Justin Doherty
Publication: The Modern Language Review (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 101 Issue: 4 Page: 1196(2)

Article Type: Book review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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Kolyma Tales
Varlam Shalamov
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OJ1Q96

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HARP SONG FOR A RADICAL: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF EUGENE VICTOR DEBS
Marguerite Young
Manufacturer: Alfred A. Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000J3RW7W

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HARP SONG FOR A RADICAL; THE LIFE AND TIMES OF EUGENE VICTOR DEBS
Marguerite Young
Manufacturer: Publisher Unknown
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000WR35QC

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Poetic

Poorly written, no matter how you look at it.

A lyrical history of the early American labor movement

Harp Song Gibberish

Big disappointment!

Harp Song for a Radical: The Life and Times of Eugene Victor Debs
Marguerite Young
Manufacturer: Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist (The Working Class in American History)

ASIN: 0679427570
Release Date: 1999-09-14

Amazon.com

Don't pick up this fascinating, deeply eccentric book expecting to find a conventional biography of Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926). The fiery American labor leader who founded the Socialist Party of America is not so much the subject as the central figure in a group portrait of utopian dreamers--including Karl Marx, Brigham Young, abolitionist Wendell Phillips, poet James Whitcomb Riley, and detective-agency founder Allan Pinkerton--from the time of the French Revolution through the dawn of the 20th century. Author Marguerite Young is a legendary Greenwich Village bohemian who died in 1995. She devoted the last 25 years of her life to this volume, which was intended as a recapitulation of the issues that had engaged Debs--justice for workers, peace for everyone, racial equality--and continued to galvanize America in the 1960s and beyond. Young doesn't provide a lot of straight factual information about Debs's life, but takes instead a snapshot of his soul as it was formed by reading and experience. The narrative closes (sort of) with the national railroad strike of 1877, a bitter defeat for labor that turned railroad worker and union activist Debs toward greater radicalism. Though not a work for the traditionally minded, Young's genre-bending book will thrill students of American social and socialist history. --Wendy Smith

Book Description

An extraordinary literary accomplishment, thirty-five years in the making, from the greatly admired author of Miss Macintosh, My Darling ("A work of stunning magnitude and beauty" --New York Times Book Review): a  biography of Eugene Victor Debs, the country's first great labor leader.

To set the stage for her protagonist, in whose struggles she saw acted out all of the conflicted forces that shaped industrial America, and to trace the roots of the American labor and socialist movements, the author opens up a sweep of history and an epic cast of characters. Here are Generals Sheridan and Custer, heroes of the Civil War, fighting the Indians in the West and the workers in the mines, the factories, and on the railroads . . . Alan Pinkerton, the radical weaver from Scotland who came to the New World and created an agency dedicated to destroying labor organizations. Presidents Lincoln, Grant, Cleveland, and Wilson appear. We see the dreamers, the reformers, the crusaders, among them Susan B. Anthony and  Sojourner Truth. Here are Henry James Sr., who educated his children according to the tenets of Fourier;  James Whitcomb Riley, author of "Little Orphan Annie"; James McNeill Whistler, whose father built a railroad for the czar of Russia; Samuel Gompers, head of the Federation of Labor; the governor of Illinois . . . who refused to call in the army to break the Pullman Strike, or the "Debs Strike" as it came to be called. Men and women, high and low, are caught by the author in the struggle to maintain ideals, in the fight for the rights and dignity of the individual that forged the American identity and ever afterward characterized the American culture.

Marguerite Young takes us into the world of the men who led the American multitudes west before the Civil War--and shows how these pioneers were influenced by the French Revolution's Saint-Simon and Fourier, and then by the German idealists Heinrich Heine, Karl Marx, and Wilhelm Weitling who visited secular and religious settlements across the United States.

All these threads come together in the life and personality of Eugene Debs: his childhood in Terre Haute, Indiana, in the pastoral America that faded into a distant golden memory after the Civil War, when the town became a center of transportation for industrial expansion. We see Debs finding employment in the railroad yards, becoming caught up in the plight of his fellow workers, editing the union paper, traveling across the country, gathering the knowledge and acquiring the consciousness that inspired him to espouse collective action on behalf of labor, to found the Industrial Workers of the World, and to run as the Socialist candidate for president of the United States five times--three times from prison.

We see the fierce struggle between the classes--and Debs in the thick of the fight--as the American promise opens up for the men and women in the factories, in the mills, in the stockyards. We see Debs the worker becoming a political leader, becoming a reformer, becoming the voice of the workingman, becoming the founder of American Socialism. Debs, reviled and loved, Debs with the look of a plain man, an austere country doctor, becoming a mythic hero of the age.

A mesmerizing dual portrait of a man and a century.

Customer Reviews:

Poetic.......2004-11-21

I actually liked this book; this is apparently a minority view. I too was expecting a biography of Debs and got a more general history of 19th Century America and the Labor Movement (among many other things).

However, once I made the commitment to read it (I had just started a job with quite a bit of down time), I loved it. It was obviously the product of an enormous amount of work, both research and writing. It reads like a long love poem to the people and organizations who struggled to give us what we now consider an entitlement - weekends off, the minimum wage, basic safety and health regulations on the job, etc.

It also gave me a good introduction, which I found fascinating, to the various communes, cults and socio/religious/political movements that sprung up like weeds in the 19th Century.

This is a heartfelt tribute to a bygone era well worth reading.

However, if you want a biography of Debs, read something else after you read "Harp Song."

Poorly written, no matter how you look at it........2003-04-01

I bought this book as a remainder. I have attempted to struggle through it several times and it is clear to me why it was remaindered. If I could assign it zero stars I would.

As a biography this work is a total failure. I was not able to find information on E. V. Debs as one would expect from a book subtitled "The Life and Times of...". Discursions and ramblings could add spice and flavor to a conventional biography but this book seems to consist only of the discursions and ramblings.

If the intent is to create some sort of poetic meditation on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century life and labor activism, I judge the work a failure here too. Obviously in this aspect my judgement is subjective and artistic and others are welcome to disagree with an aesthetic judgement. But... Pick this book up at any point and you will find the same exact material and style. The bits don't fit together. Yet the artistry escapes me too. It looks like a jumbled mismash. I want to point out that I don't consider myself any kind of Philistine. But if you want to see good stream-of-consciousness, check out Faulkner, or Joyce, etc., and you'll see that they actually look like they know what they're doing!

Finally, although this book seems to be written in relatively standard English (although with incredibly long single-sentence paragraphs), I was disappointed to find within seconds of opening the pages actual grammatical errors such as disagreement of subject and object, etc.

Failure as a biography, failure as an artistic rumination on an atmosphere. Failure all around.

A lyrical history of the early American labor movement.......2002-12-01

Looking at the other customer reviews for this unusual book, I doubt that the reviewers either read the introduction or that they actually read more than a few pages. This is not a conventional biography. Nor is it a completed, polished work. Marguerite Young died when her biography of Debs was incomplete and very much a work in progress. Had she lived to complete it, it would have been a fuller picture of his life. But her idiosyncratic approach would still have colored every page.

It is also helpful to understand that in writing one of her previous books--"Angel in the Forest"--Young started out writing a lengthy poem, then converted it into a prose work. (The Debs book is in some ways reminiscent of Stephen Vincent Benet's "John Brown's Body," only Young employed blank verse.)

The Debs book has been described as Whitmanesque, and it is reminiscent of both the poetry and prose of that pillar of American literature. As both a poet and prose writer, Young takes a lyrical, almost stream of consciousness approach in this book. (Her work has also been likened to James Joyce's--a comparison she apparently disliked, though it strikes me as appropriate.) Those who criticize the book for its rambling style seem to miss this point.

Others have suggested that the book might better be entitled "The Times and Life of Eugene Victor Debs." In her unconventional approach, Young does seem to focus more on a history of the times in which Debs lived than on the man himself. The book pays particular attention to the socioeconomic and political developments which shaped the industrial revolution in this country, particularly the American labor movement. The author is at her best when documenting industrial accidents and working conditions and in describing the dominance of American "captains of industry" over both the economy and the American government at all levels.

Those who find Part One of the book--the first 178 pages--difficult to read might be advised to read the first 21 pages, then skip to Part Two, which is more focused on Debs and his times. Part One of the book admittedly becomes bogged down in describing utopian socialists--it gives far too much attention to the obscure German immigrant socialist Wilhelm Weitling as well as delving into the detailed history of early Mormonism, a topic which apparently fascinated the author because Brigham Young was one of her ancestors.

Part Two of the book is also sweeping in its scope, but it provides a memorable description of the early decades of Debs' life (with emphasis on 1855-1877), tracing the emigration of his parents to the U.S. from Alsace Lorraine, describing the influence of his parents' radicalism on his own personal beliefs, and detailing his work as a railroad laborer and union organizer. It does this against the backdrop of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, Reconstruction, the Indian Wars, national politics, and labor developments, culminating in the violent railroad strikes of 1877. Given Young's and Debs's Hoosier origins, it devotes a lot of attention to Indiana, particularly the poet James Whitcomb Riley. (The book started out as a Riley biography, but Young became fascinated with Debs and decided to rework it into Debs's life story.)

This is not a book for the casual reader--it is a demanding book to get through. But that understood, it is a worthwhile investment of time and beautifully written. On completing the book, I found myself regretting that Marguerite Young did not live to complete this imperfect yet remarkable work of American history and literature.

Harp Song Gibberish.......2000-12-12

It is almost unbelievable how Marguerite Young, the respected New York academic who died before completing this work, was able to turn nearly every sentence she wrote into a bombastic political diatribe. If you are hankering for a moralistic, preachy lecture on the evils of American capitalism, pick up this volume and select any sentence at random (or if you prefer, start on page 1 and read sequentially; it will still seem random). Sometimes you have to wonder what this little old lady was smoking in her pipe:

"In June 1886, one month after the Haymarket bombings, Debs with diurnal and nocturnal hopes of man's redemption by way of labor unions was trying to steer the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen across a bridge which would not be a Bridge of Sighs, a Bridge of Lies, and crumble into the chaos created not by men in search of justice but by those capitalistic powers who did whatever they pleased and did not seem to care how many trains and train men were destroyed because of overpasses as untrustworthy as if they were tons and tons of steel and iron and wood upheld by toothpicks and often so pressed upon by heavy traffic that rose petals thrown upon a rail and adding to that weight might cause a total collapse with loss of many lives, not only those of train men but of passengers in parlor cars and passengers in boxcars, the latter including cattle and tramps." [p. 351]

That's pretty much what you'll find in this book, folks. Tells you a lot about Eugene Debs, doesn't it? Unlike some well-known reviewers, I do not find this author's interminable run-on sentences "poetic," but merely incoherent. Some have praised it as "quirky" and "non-traditional" -- code words, apparently, for a literary experiment gone terribly wrong. If you're in the right mood, you may find yourself laughing out loud -- surely not an intended reaction, however. One of the blurbs on the back cover, by William Goyen in the NYT, calls it "one of the most arresting literary achievements in our last twenty years..." Well, it is arresting, all right. I could barely read a page without having my interest arrested. Perhaps someone should consider arresting the editors who saw fit to publish it.

Big disappointment!.......2000-09-09

This book was a big disappointment. I bought what I thought was a biography on the great socialist leader Eugene Debs only to find that it was a long winded, pretentious and disjointed meditation on the socialist movement and the utopian communities that led up to it.

I don't know what Marguerite Young was thinking when she decided to tackle this project but it certainly wasn't a biography in the traditional sense. I guess I should have paid more attention to the words 'Harp Song' in the title because that's what this book really was- a bloody long harp song.

I suppose that if you're a fan of Young's prose you might appreciate this book but for anyone looking to get some insight into the life of Eugene Victor Debs- you'll have to go elsewhere.

Book Description

Grace Bryan Holmes was born in rural Georgia in 1919. During a troubled childhood, she frequently found solace in the black servants who cared for her family part-time. After the death of one of these servants, she resolved to help the woman's surviving children and grandchildren. Over the course of her life, this commitment altered her perspective on the racial prejudice so prevalent in her community. She shouldered the burden of her growing awareness through many years of service as the wife of a rising Baptist minister, until the gradual assertion of the convictions she had formed in silence brought her into direct conflict with prevailing social attitudes, her strong-willed mother, and her husband's congregation. Time to Reconcile is a redemptive account of a southern woman's struggle to free herself from the legacies of prejudice, parental domination, paternalism, and class-consciousness that had defined her life and constricted her thinking. Holmes's vividly detailed and extraordinarily honest recollections offer a refreshingly candid look at the fabric of southern society in the mid-twentieth century.

Customer Reviews:

Enjoyable, moving book.......2001-01-03

I found this book to be very enjoyable. It was very well written and the author was very descriptive in describing how things were during her life, and how they changed. I found it very interesting to see how much race relations have changed since the time the author was a girl.

Time to Reconcile: The Odyssey of the Southern Baptist

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Time to Reconcile: The Odyssey of the Southern Baptist
Grace Bryan Holmes
Manufacturer: University of Georgia
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000J0VJEW

Time to Reconcile: the Odyssey of a Southern Baptist.(Southern Voices from the Past: Women's Letters, Diaries, and Writings) (book review) : An article from: Journal of Southern History

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Time to Reconcile: the Odyssey of a Southern Baptist.(Southern Voices from the Past: Women's Letters, Diaries, and Writings) (book review) : An article from: Journal of Southern History
Jennifer Ritterhouse
Manufacturer: Southern Historical Association
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Journal of Southern History, published by Southern Historical Association on August 1, 2002. The length of the article is 801 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Time to Reconcile: the Odyssey of a Southern Baptist.(Southern Voices from the Past: Women's Letters, Diaries, and Writings) (book review)
Author: Jennifer Ritterhouse
Publication: Journal of Southern History (Refereed)
Date: August 1, 2002
Publisher: Southern Historical Association
Volume: 68 Issue: 3 Page: 746(3)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

They are America's most powerful women. The fourteen female U.S. senators currently in office have changed not only the face of power, but the exercise of power as well. Bringing women's perspectives and life experiences to what has been described as America's most exclusive (and exclusively male) club, female senators are emerging as powerbrokers in Congress, known for their bipartisan teamwork, compassion for social issues, ability to build coalitions, and use of unique tools for lawmaking.

This pioneering work of photojournalism documents all fourteen women in their day-to-day work as senators. Melina Mara's candid images show the senators attending hearings, meeting the press, greeting their constituents, consulting with staff, legislating behind the scenes, and sharing private moments with colleagues and family. The photographs capture the demanding, 24/7 nature of the job and show clearly that the female senators more than hold their own among their male colleagues.

Accompanying the photos are a commentary by journalist Cokie Roberts, introductions by Senators Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), and interviews between veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas and all of the senators. These pieces address women's achievements in attaining political power and frankly describe the burdens and rewards of the office. The senators describe their motivations for being in the Senate, the challenges they've faced, the way they balance work and family, and the prospects for a woman winning the presidency in the coming years.

As Congress becomes a truly representative institution for the first time in its over-two-hundred-year history, the women who have been pathbreakers in the Senate well deserve this photographic tribute. Changing the Face of Power is at once headline news and a potent documentary record of a turning point in American and women's history.

Changing History: Women, Power, and Politics

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Changing History: Women, Power, and Politics

ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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In this collection of essays and interviews journalist Dick Russell examines the role of African Americans through two centuries of American history. He focuses primarily on the role of blacks in the cultural life of the United States. Russell writes about notable figures such as educator Mary McLeod Bethune, speaks with Harvard professor Cornel West about W. E. B. Du Bois, and discusses Frederick Douglass and James Baldwin in an essay titled "Timeless Voices, Parallel Realities." Black Genius and the American Experience, with an introduction by Alvin F. Poussaint, takes a thoughtful and fascinating look at the contributions to U.S. history made by Americans of African descent.

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IN DEPTH PORTRAITS.......2000-12-25

Most biographical profiles of African-Americans are to general in their view of the person or superficial in the analysis of that person's contribution to American life. Dick Russell avoids both mistakes by providing you with an in depth portrait of Black men and women whose lives and work impacted upon the cultural milieu of America.

A genius is defined as one who has an exceptional natural capacity of intellect. Black Genius shows you such persons but goes further in documenting the distinctive character or spirit of African-American experience that birthed these individuals. You have men and women representative in the fields of the arts, science and theological realms. Their individual achievements in those fields are a part of a continuous thread of genius passed down from one generation to the next.

You will find people here that are not well known (and their work) except within their own communities or fields. Such examples are Bob Moses, Carl & Allen Shaw, and Elma Lewis. Others are better known but the inner depth of their intellectual qualities are invisible. Albert Murray, Paul Robeson and others are just a few examples.

Black Genius is a fresh look at African-American intellectuals from a different perspective and gives us a greater appreciation for their contributions. I enjoyed the fact that individuals were included that were not well known or hidden in obscurity. These are the people who serve as the continued thread and spirit of African-American life and culture. I highly recommend this text for those wanting to get a greater in depth look at the heart of what makes an African-American Genius.

Enlightening!.......1998-05-16

This book should also be sold out of the inspirational section of bookstores. If read with an open mind (are you listening Kirkus?) one will find all sorts of tidbits that will motivate further study on the subjects being interviewed. As a result of my reading this book I have placed books by Albert Murray, Stanley Crouch and Alvin Ailley on my reading list As a 57 year old African-American I was embarrassed to be reading about people like Romare Bearden, Elma Lewis and Lois Jones for the first time. The Chairman of the Board, Frank Sinatra died last night. Frank was quoted as saying "he patterned his singing style after Bing Crosby." According to statements made in Black Genius, Bing Crosby patterned his singing style after Louis Armstrong. It's stuff like this that makes this book so interesting. Mr. Russell had a way of bringing out the characters that made them seem human and like folks we'd like to know better. . Reading about Paul Robeson, Jr who went to Technical High School in Springfield, Mass. with my aunts and uncles was quite interesting. I grew up hearing a lot about the Robesons, but Black Genius added to that knowledge. The Talmud says "we don't see things as they are, we see things as we are," therefore I'm happy that I felt good while reading this book. I plan to give it to my friends with a note saying, "you don't have to wait until Black History Month," " Keep the faith baby!" (You'll find the originator of that statement in the book also)

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Black Genius & the American Experience
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ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000SMN840

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