Motherhood in Black and White does what few books on liberalism dare to do-- talk about policy, politics, and psychology as having gendered underpinnings and racial consequences. Feldstein's story is about the good guys, the racial liberals of the age between the New Deal and the Great Society, who optimistically conceive of the state as having a necessary role to play in the eradication of racism and poverty in the US. Yet, even with these laudatory goals, these white hats put into play conservative notions of womanhood to propel civil rights activism and anti-poverty programs forward. Mothers, black and white, needed-- no, were relentlessly compelled by popular culture, psychological experts and political commentators-- to raise healthy, manly, and restrained sons who would grow up to become good citizens, able to be compassionate, assertive, and democratic. Poverty and racism were the consequence of a job poorly done. The tight rope women walked-- be affectionate, but not smothering, be strong but not castrating-- is deftly explored by Feldstein through a range of sources, including Hollywood film, New Deal legislation and The Nation, as well as through characters like Mammy Till Bradley and Betty Friedan. This is not another account of mom- bashing. Masterful, indeed.

This was one of the most eye-opening books I've ever read. I have never seen such articulate and comprehensive arguments made about the parallels and correlations in public policy to race and gender. Feldstein is brilliant and enthralling. I recomend it to anyone who thinks legislation now and in history can be analysied at face value.

This history of ideas about motherhood is much more than that: Feldstein argues that the way our culture has represented motherhood tells us a great deal about gender roles, racial politics, and the development of mid-century liberalism generally. To me, the most exciting claim of the book is that many Americans, both black and white, who made liberal arguments for African American civil rights, did so by making conservative arguments about gender. That is, in order to prove that racial differences were not biological or inevitable, social scientists and others tried to prove that racial differences were social and psychological: in particular, they insisted that such differences were caused by the failure of black women to mother their children into properly (white-modeled) citizens. Similarly, when cultural observers wanted to understand white prejudice, they looked to arguments about the role of mothers in raising men who were likely to become fascists, racists, or communists. Feldstein argues that from the 1930s to the 1960s, liberal ideas for racial equality were in some sense _built_ on conservative ideas about the failures of both black and white women to be proper mothers. Women were simultaneously accused of being bad mothers and exhorted to do more mothering -- told this was their highest and most valuable role.

Feldstein's argument is fascinating, because she shows us how hard it is to fully separate the "good guys" from the "bad guys" when we study the complexities of American history: liberation in one arena can depend on reinscribing a kind of oppression in another.

And the book, while very scholarly, is also an interesting read. The author discusses popular culture (such as the Imitation of Life movies), social movements, and intellectual history in a highly nuanced and yet readable way.

I purchased the MP3 Underground book at a Wal-Mart store for a great price. I have never understood much about MP3, until I purchased this book. It gives, especially for newbies, a semi-technical explanation of the "does" and "don'ts" in the "seedy underworld" of the MP3. The book "reads" very easily, even for a newbie. The book appears to have literary content, but it is excellent for technical explanations. The nice part of this book, which appears to be unintentional, is the many freebies. For instance, on pages 138 and 142, supported by pictures, are good technical explanations for the many whistles and bells on the MusicMatch Jukebox. Not even Microsoft or Dell gives a newbie this kind of illustrated technical explanations. This is a must have book.

Ron White and his son Michael have teamed up to write MP3 Underground, an exciting book that discusses in considerable detail the inner workings of the Internet, MP3 streaming technology, the software programs and devices used to participate in this innovative medium of online music distribution, and legal considerations that govern the music industry. Readers will greatly benefit from the treatment that Napster receives. The book provides a lot of detail, perhaps more than some folks in the music recording industry would like us to know about.

The book provides essential information about MP3 music playing programs such as RealJukeBox, MusicMatch, and the Windows Media Player, online music search programs such as Napster, Go!Zilla, MP3 Friend, and CuteFTP/MX, and portable players that will allow users to play downloaded tunes while on the go. Users will be able to compare the features of programs and players, they will learn how to use them, and then select the ones that best suit their own individual music needs.

Other helpful information provided by the authors includes instructions on how to download music, collecting and organizing music, burning your own music CD's, and recording online broadcasts using "ripper" programs. An excellent feature of the book not to overlook is the impressive listing of 101 audio Websites that offer downloadable music, music industry news, Webcasts, good links, software programs, and other streaming audio content.

The CD that accompanies the book features an impressive array of audio file editors, players, plug-ins, compression programs, and Web browsers that will help you get started to create, edit, play, and distribute music immediately. These programs will permit you to create and distribute just about every kind of sound file. They are really great tools to have on hand!

The book is fun, enjoyable, and entertaining to read. The contents is directed toward those who take music seriously, with a touch of humor thrown in to grab your attention. The inside front cover legal disclaimer is a riot. Readers will learn to greater appreciate computers and the Internet as serious tools to create and distribute music. This book will revolutionize the way we create, share, listen to, and enjoy music. This is a great gift idea for budding musicians and computer hobbyists. It's ideal for beginners!

Finally someone dared to write the book that tells what we want to know about MP3 and not just the surface junk. So many of the MP3 books that I have bought and read are filled with stuff that is boring and meaningless. It is almost as if the authors are afraid to write about this topic but they go ahead anyway hoping to sell a book. The CDs included with most books have been as dull as the book itself. Not so in this case. The book is written with a touch of humor which makes for enjoyable reading. Several times I found myself laughing right out loud at comments made. Not many computer books warrant reading every page but thats what I ended up doing with this book. I found the CD included things I could use right away. Also, this book is written so that even computer novices like myself can understand it. Too many times I find that authors assume that we all understand the entire workings of the computer world.

This book is an edited version of the "spontaneus discourses given by Osho in Lao Tzu House, Poona, India". All the fifteen chapters in " My Way" are replete with insightful statements and as a whole will lead to a very blissful life if followed.

It is ironical that the man who exhorted everyone to drop their egos and become desireless didn't follow his own advice. This is where Osho differed from the likes of Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj. His driving ambition to start a new religion at any cost led to his downfall.

But we should still be very grateful to Osho (Rajneesh) for a countless number of brilliant discouses on Tantra, Taoism, Zen, and anything to do with self-awareness, and also to his "sanyasins" who had toiled so hard to edit his discourses for publication.

I read a lot of Osho's book and many more of other Master. This is to me the best of Osho and probably of of the top 5 book I know.

A book is a book, meeting a real master is meeting a real master. If you are pulled toward IT, find one.Only after I met John de Ruiter, that I found someone to replace the magnificence of Osho. Rare are the Master that have been on this planet of the caliber of Jesus. For those interested sincerely in the Truth, I would suggest to meet John de Ruiter

A book that show the darshans questions and the marvelous insights of this modern mystic called Osho. A good book to read into the nature. Good Reading!

In this book, people who have read alot into Native American history will see the more famous Indian testimonials that have appeared in many other places, like those by heavily published persons like Black Elk, Tecumseh, and Charles Eastman (Sioux). You also get many anonymous accounts and the testimony from obscure persons who were only known to give their thoughts to a few white people. What sets this book above the rest, however, is that it doesn't just cover the time periods that are shown in most Native American histories, which would either be ancient pre-European times, or the famous era of the Indians' destruction and valiant efforts to maintain the old ways of life. This book also covers those areas, as it should, but continues into the modern reservation days, and even captures the thoughts of recent activists on the future of Native Americans. All people will be enlightened by the non-Western interpretations on history, religion, politics, and culture that are generously detailed in this book.

This book is a collection of interviews with and stories from everyday people as they lived out their lives. I first read this book several years ago, yet I find that there are interviews and stories that I go back and reread again and again. If you are a Native or a student of Native American History, this is a good book to have on your shelf.

Nabokov has done a superb job of collecting individual Native American memoirs from the last half millenium and weaving them together to paint the sad portrait of Indian-White relations. In between the tales from each successive time period in history is enlightening commentary, usually an historical overview of the period written by the editor. These commentaries help give a unity to this work. But this is not simply a bad guys vs. good guys book. Nabokov's stories reflect the complexity involved among Native Americans who frequently disagreed with each other about what would be the best path to trod for all concerned; and they also tell the stories of proud peoples who continued to survive and carry on. This book illuminates history in a way that most school textbooks do not.

Native American Testimony is one of the best books I have ever read regarding the real history of the native peoples. It tells of the first meeting of the white man through the present. This is all from the Native American perspective. All tribes are represented throughout this book showing the different expereinces they each had with the white man. And the white mans need to change a beautiful culture. This book should be read by everyone at some point in there life, it should be mandatory within the school system as well. It shows the strength these people had to survive and how they fought for there rights. I enjoyed this book because for the first time in my life I felt I was being told the truth about the relationship of the US government and the Native Americans. Past to Present.

Using eye-witness,first-hand accounts, Nabokov provides a chronicle of Native American history. Authentic, moving, and vivid are the words that come to my mind. The photographs used also stir the heart.

Simply an outstanding book. Peter Nabakov has collected an impressive array of first-hand testimonials of Native people in one readable and very important volume. Chapters range from prophecies of various Peoples stretching thousands of years before European contact to responses and testimonies of Native people today. Many books in this vein focus on historical 'quotable quotes,' whereas this book is far greater in both depth and breadth. Highly recommended for anyone interested in Native Peoples, Native histories and Native issues.

Covers all the basics, very commonsensical. Though it's a thin book, it's worth its weight in gold!

This is a great collection of self-help information, dished up with personal style and wit. While a handy reference to keep around, it's also fun to read through. Some chapters will have you laughing out loud! Check it out

A very valuable and quick guide to the most natural remedies found, thank you for making it available. Do they publish any other books like this

In August 1971, after three days of paddling his fragile kayak through a wilderness of bears and glaciers, Walt Blackadar , a doctor from Salmon, Idaho, tackled what is arguably one of the worst stretches of white water in the world- Turnback canyon on the Alsek river. He was forty nine years old and he was alone.

His solo run of Turnback canyon was one of the major breakthroughs in the history of white water kayaking and has been compared to the first ascent of Everest without oxygen. Although techniques and technologies improve, psychological barriers define what is possible. Walt's run of Turnback, no matter how exaggerated it may have been in hindsight, blew those definitions wide open.

In Never Turn back, Ron Watters, himself no slouch when it comes to river running, tells the story of this impressive man. Although born in the eastern united states, Blackadar went west looking for adventure. He didn't take up white water kayaking until he was in his forties. He quickly established a reputation though his pioneering runs on the biggest white water in the states.

The chapters dealing with Blackadar's solo run are the core of this book, an inspiring description of one man pitting himself willfully against the possibility of his own annihilation. Turnback made Walt a celebrity. Seven years later he was dead.

Watters deals honestly with Blackadar; he comes across as a loud, brash boozy man. He also describes Walt's failures and there are some great stories along the way.

Blackadar, like Mike Jones, died in 1978. Unlike Jones, Walt died in what seems a stupid accident on a Saturday morning paddle on a local river. The image of him causally trying to drawstroke his boat from under the log he was pinned against is one of the book's most haunting images.

There are two underlying themes which make this so much more than an accumulation of well told kayaking stories. The first is the tragic story of a man forced to be the impotent witness to his body's slow decay, a man who was terrified by the thought of dying in bed of cancer and old age, who constantly looked for new challenges to prove he was till young and strong. This is the man who constantly claimed that was invincible, that he would never die on a river and that he could, and would, one day paddle over Niagra falls and live to tell the tale.

Walt was also a representative of a certain, almost specifically American hero. He comes across as John Wayne in a kayak. Loud, bursting with energy, he went west to find adventure and the adventures he sought were the traditional test of "man in the wilderness". But there was no longer any social purpose to these adventures and the people of salmon recognised this and protested against their doctor continually risking his life. The days of the great individual , if they ever really existed, were disappearing fast. Salmon was changing from wild west town to settled community. Blackadar's lone yellow kayak in a world of ice grey is a symbol of the final fling of a man unencumbered by corporate sensibility, innocent of economic calculation, impervious to social pressure.

Never Turn Back is meticulously researched and written in a stylish, understated prose that artfully lets the subject tell itself. If you know nothing about Blackadar and have no interest in white water kayaking, this is still a rare book, intelligently and honestly written, an entertaining and thought provoking biography.

My thoughts have often returned to this book even though I read it several months ago. I cannot quite grasp how Blackadar survived the first descent of Turnback Canyon so long ago with the older equipment and kayak, alone. Such strength, courage, and focus is rarely encountered. He belongs to an elite group. He is compared to Hillary but I think he is more aptly compared to Mallory. Watters portrays several sides to this most interesting man. I find myself often thinking about how different he is from me. Yet the exercise of comparison is rewarding.

This book gave me a different look of a man that I have seen many times. It kept me on the edge of my seat. Although I knew what the outcome was prior to reading it, it still brought tears to my eyes. Well worth reading it.

The Offenhauser is arguably the most successful racing engine ever designed, and this book traces its earliest incarnation (when it was the "Miller") to the last turbo-charged days...Inbetween it powered an staggering number of conseutive Indy 500 winners, plus AAA/USCA sprint and midget champions, not to mention IMCA and amazingly even some road racing wins (not to mention possibly the least succesful grand prix car of all time, the Scarab) The "techie" will find loads of specs, cross-sections, and line drawings, the vintage race fans plenty of photos of the cars of the era. (Note to the author: a larger color section in the next edition please.)A really great addition to those of us interested in the history of auto racing....

I have just finished Gordon White's book on Offenhauser Racing Products, and fascinating is a word that comes to mind to describe the effort. Idid not attend the Indy 500 until 1994 and missed all those wonderful years when the Miller/Goosen/Offenhauser engines dominated the race. I was lucky enough to attend several years of Championship Car races at the old Sacramento Fairgrounds and witnessed the Offy in action. Gordon has done a fine job bringing back some of those memories, and making a strong case in my view that these individuals were American heroes! If you are at all interested in things mechanical, this is a must read!

Offenhauser tells the story of the engine that dominated American Championship, sprint and midget and even sports car racing for nearly a half-century. It is surprising that such a book was not written long ago, but the author has done an amazing job of research into racing's past. He tells both the human story of the men who built the Offy - Miller, Goossen, Sobraske, Meyer, Drake and Fred Offenhauser himself, and the technical and political story of the old four-banger's rise to victory at Indianapolis, its long domination there, its fall in 1965, rebirth with turbocharging and final demise in the 1980s. The collection of photographs is amazing - many I never saw before as well as those of well-known drivers such as Foyt who drove Offenhauser-powered cars. Anyone remotely interested in auto racing should definitely have this book.

This collection of essays is such a fine book; it deserves a much better commentary than it currently has here. And given the times we live in, its subject matter is particularly timely for American readers -- the period of history leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the early years of the war effort -- all told from the point of view of a thoughtful writer on a small farm in Maine.

White had moved there with his wife and young son from New York, where he'd been writing for The New Yorker, and took up country living, turning his attention to the annual round of the seasons, farm work, the nearby seaside, and the company of independent rural people. Most of the essays in this collection were written and published monthly in Harpers from July 1938 to January 1943. In them, there is White's awareness of the ominous threat of fascism emerging in Europe, as well as the vulnerability that Americans felt as they found themselves facing prolonged armed conflict with powerful enemies. These were dark days, and they provide a constant undertone in these otherwise upbeat essays about rural and small-town life.

And they are upbeat, celebrating the pleasures and gentle ironies of daily life with a few side trips into the world beyond -- the birth of a lamb, paying taxes, farm dogs, hay fever, raising chickens, Sunday mornings, radio broadcasts, civil defense drills, a visit to Walden pond, a day at the World's Fair, and unrealistic Hollywood portrayals of the pastoral. There is also here his famous essay "Once More to the Lake."

In many ways, the world he writes about is gone forever. But it's a world whose spirit remains at the heart of the national identity -- participatory democracy, individualism, citizenship, self-discovery, and self-reliance. Reading these essays, while they are often about seemingly trivial matters, you sense White's deepening faith in the American Experiment -- a belief in America as a work in progress.

And, of course, there is the famous White style, both simple and elegant. Its language, sentence structure, and movement of thought convey both sharpness of mind and generosity of spirit, in a manner that looks and sounds easy, but it is very hard to imitate. I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the WWII homefront, the essay as a literary form, and a curiosity about rural life before farm subsidies and agribusiness.

Understanding E.B. White is not an easy task. He was a reserved man, very straightforward in his writing and simple in nature. However, White found that he was able to express himself with his writing, and none of his books is a more direct window into his soul than "One Man's Meat." Written over the course of White's later years of living on a Maine farm, this book contains witty accounts of geographic novelty, reminiscences on the promise of youth, and powerful insights into the little things in life that can make all the difference. No reader of E.B. White can gain a full knowledge of what the man was all about without having thoroughly digested this book.

For one who aspires to write well--the most delicious book I've ever read. The words "witty" and "sharp" come to mind, but poorly describe White and his work. Maybe, no words do with any degree of accuracy and right praise.

Bravo...Being a Black woman with a Civil Engineering Degree from an Ivy League University, currently working in Construction Management, this book tells the story of "how it is". To me it is fusion of African American Studies, and Woman's Studies with a focus on the African American woman using the White woman as a control subject. I've seen the examples given in the book played out before me in my own career.

To the authors: well done thank you for looking into a subject that society choses to ignore.

Once you start reading about these women's childhoods, it is hard to put down the book. You will find your own story amongst the women in this book. While it is sometimes heartwrenching, it is nevertheless hopeful. Every woman who has or is about to work in corporate America ought to read this book. I would also say buy one for your manager. The books says the things perhaps a lot of women executives have not been able to share. Professors Bell and Nkomo are to be commended for their scholarship and clear writing.

Our Separate Ways examines differences between black and white women's trials and triumphs as they rose in the business world; but it's much more than an account of experiences. Eight years of research contributed to and formed the foundation for this coverage, which blends in-depth case histories with profiles of insights gained on race, gender, and economics. Our Separate Ways is an invaluable title.