Unlike previous reviewers, I was not terribly impressed with Clock Without Hands. While obviously Carson McCullers wanted to make a rather emotional, dramatic statement regarding racism in a changing 1950s Georgia, I believe she "over-egged the pudding". The story itself is about a small town in Georgia where several related characters, centered on a elderly judge, struggles with the pace of change with regards to racial equality. While the interactions and complications between the characters are interesting and, at times, quite moving, I felt the basic premise of the story was compromised by two-dimensional racial stereotypes. I thought the young protaganist, a blue-eyed negro, was in particular very poorly developed.

However Clock Without Hands does not discourage me from exploring further works from Ms. McCullers. I was particularly impressed by the amazing Reflections in a Golden Eye, which I strongly recommend over Clock Without Hands for those uninitiated with her work.

Geez...what can I say about this book? Well...I could start by saying that is was an excellent novel. Being 16 years old and all, this book really explained to me how some of the old southerners thought. They still had pride in the "old south" and it fascinated me that the old judge wanted Confederate money to be made redeemable into US dollars. I just could believe it. It portrayed racist, economic, and political issues in a very believable way. It was, all in all, emotional and it really had every emotion contained within it. At times it was funny. At times is was serious. Sometimes it was happy. Sometimes it was sad. It really gets you going once you read the first 10 pages. I liked it very much and do recommend it to everyone -- regardless of age.

Written in 1953, this book explores the racial tensions in a small southern town. The winds of integration are in the air and the Old South is dying. The story is told through several characters. There's a pharmacist dying of leukemia who struggles with the diagnosis. There's a elderly judge who's a former congressman who really believes that the confederate money hoarded in his attic will some day bring him riches. There's the judge's grandson who sees changes coming. And then there's a young blue-eyed Negro who tries to be accepted.

Carson McCullers is a master of setting the stage for this disturbing tale which is certainly not comfortable to read. Each of the characters is exaggerated but that is her intent. She lays out the conflict with surgical precision and creates a world that doesn't exist any more. It's a brutal world and all the sugar coated Southern niceties just don't help. There's violence in the air. I felt it coming throughout and hoped it wouldn't happen. But the conclusion is inevitable.

Fine book. Fine writing. Recommended.

I'm not a fan of the open-ended short story, being a tale that is redolent with symbolism that I'm certain is there but just don't "get." Unfortunately McCullers' tales seem to fall into this category so I was not terribly thrilled with the stories. However, as a body of work they were interesting--the themes of lost childhood, changing sibling relationships, disgruntled musical prodigies, and general loneliness / rejection emerge and give a nice sense of continuity to the works. The inclusion of two of her novellas is nice; I appreciate the longer story format for the ability to get to know the characters and setting a little better.

Overall I'd recommend picking up McCullers' novellas and if you're thrilled with those, tackle her short stories.

I've loved Carson McCullers for years, and her complete works have only been sporadically available. Her miniatures are near perfectly realized works of literary art, and this collection is a fine introduction to a great writer from the south who seems to have dropped of the critical radar. Her output is quite small, finely honed, and the prose is like a clear blue sky. Her longer works are worth searching for, and I recently noted that The Library of America has been hard at work making sure that Carson will continue to be read....!

I have always read stories in the past that gave me feelings right away. After reading these short stories, I was somewhat confused why McCullers didn't elaborate, or why she ended the story where she did. It was only after reading her biography, that I began to reread the stories and became obsessed with all of them. The meanings became clearer, the ideas behind them were revealed, and she has become my favorite author. I would recommend this to anyone, and I would also recommend her novels too. Enjoy.

This is a good semi-critical commentary on Matthew from an Evangelical perspective. I must confess that I was a little disappointed with this commentary since so many people speak so highly of it. It is certainly full, usually insightful and reliable. However, Carson spends too much space trying to refute either old or obscure theories which do not necessarily help anyone in understanding what Matthew has actually said. Relatedly, the book seems even more dated than its publishing date (mid 1980s) and does not deal with any of the more recent and intriguing scholarship on Matthew. In sum, the book needs to be heavily revised and updated to make it competitive with other more recent commentaries like those by Blomberg, Morris and Hagner.

Carson has done it again! I have come to expect only first-rate exegesis, theological insight, and pastoral care from Carson. This commentary did not let me down in the slightest. (It is good that Zondervan decided to release the individual commentaries from the Expositor's series. In general, the quality and content of the series is disappointing, thought there are a few highlights.)

While not as rigorous as some commentaries, it is also not as cumbersome. Carson provides a nicely concise discussion of introductory issues (if you want more, consider the fabulous volume by R.T. France, "Matthew: Evangelist and Teacher" IVP). Even though I take issue with some of Carson's judgments (e.g. Matthew 24), I am never disappointed with his presentation of the issues or his proposed applications.

This commentary is the cream of evangelical scholarship. It is an essential addition to the libraries of pastors, teachers and students.

This is by far the best commentary available today on the book of Matthew. The writing and explanations are extremely clear and thorough. The additional commentaries in the book do not rate as high, however, the Mathew commentary is worth the cost of the volume.

This is a great book if you have the right teacher. The book is very informative yet if you have no back ground in abnormal psych you might want to make sure the teacher for your course is capable of explaining it to you. I also recomend that you make sure your copy has a CD rom. The study guide and website are great tools too. They help a lot.

I am taking abnormal psychology course at the University of Brithsh Columbia, Canada. I really enjoyed reading this book because it is very informative and thought provoking and really made me abnormalities of the human being. I really liked the case examples. It takes a bit of time to read chapters but it worth the time.

Encyclopedic in content and artistic in presentation, Abnormal Psychology in Modern Life provides a superlative introduction to theory and empirical research in the field of Abnormal Psychology. The structure of the text follows a well-planned and coherent organization of the major classifications of mental disorders. Specifically, the case studies presented provide the reader with a clear understanding of the symptomatology as contained in the DSM-IV.

i was looking for a `basic' recounting of american history from colonial until the present -- carson's text does a credible job until reconstruction -- where he becomes polemical (vol. 3). vols. 4 & 5 surprisingly become harsh right- wing critiques of the failure of american government/the courts/media and so on. in vol. 4 he has an unnecessary extended debunking of darwin, for example. unless you share his passion, you will likely find the one-sidedness and unrelenting `tell it like it was' style overbearing and disspiriting. paul johnson, for example, i believe shares carson's conservatism, but does not let it overwhelm his compelling surveys of history. on the other hand, apart from the cursory review of nearly all history in vol. 1, the recounting of american history from colonial times up until the war between the states seemed balanced and to meet the books modest aims. the narrator, mary woods, i believe, reads the text well. as an alternative survey of american history, you might consider daniel boorstein's (i didn't get the spelling right, i'm afriad) multi-volume work, the american experience. it is full of insight detail, but it is hard to extract a barebone basic history of our country from it. even with carson's bias, his volumes provide a good sense of america's time-line. it is a pity he has allowed his passion to cloud his sense, and in that sense i don't regret the printed versions of his text being out of print.

Though a great admirer of Clarence Carson's works in general, I had found the first four volumes of his history of the United States slightly less interesting than more thematic essays like *The Fateful Turn* or *The Flight From Reality*. Maybe it is because Carson is more at home in pure intellectual history, or because I myself prefer concepts over facts and chronology.

However, Carson's *Basic History of the United States* remains in my opinion the most reliable on the market. As a professor of American history, it is the only one I personally recommend to my students, and the best of the six complete histories of the U.S. I have read so far.

The six-volume series is divided into the following periods: 1- The Colonial Experience 1607-1774; 2- The Beginning of the Republic 1775-1825; 3- The Sections and Civil War 1826-1877; 4- The Growth of America 1878-1928; 5- The Welfare State 1929-1985; 6- America in Gridlock 1985-1995.

The fifth volume itself is comprised of ten chapters: The Great Depression, The Thrust of the New Deal, Toward the Welfare State, The Coming of World War II, The United States in World War II, The Cold War, Welfarism at Home and Abroad, A Second Radical Reconstruction 1960-1975 and The Conservative Response.

To those of you who are sick of the deification of FDR and JFK and the vilification of Hoover and McCarthy, you will find a treatment of these key figures that radically departs from the established liberal gospel. Hoover's exceptional charity after World War I is brilliantly documented, and his refusal to enact welfare reforms on a large scale is attributed not to a lack of compassion but to the fact that "as President of the United States, he was the head of the government, not theretofore thought of as a charitable organization".

Roosevelt, on the other hand, is presented as "a candidate seeking votes, not losing them by presenting hard choices", who in his campaign speeches, dishonestly presented himself as an opponent of government expansion: "I accuse the present [Hoover] Administration of being the greatest spending Administration in peace times in all our history. It is an Administration that has piled bureau on bureau, commission on commission... I regard the reduction of Federal spending as one of the most important issues of his campaign."

Carson goes on to show how the Constitution was brutally abused by the New Deal, approvingly quoting from H. L. Mencken's hilarious "Constitution for the New Deal" and concluding with a chapter on "New Deal Hoopla and Harsh Reality".

Carson's characterizations of the major political figures of the era are masterpieces of concision and lucidity. Of Roosevelt's wife Eleanor, he says that "she never shook off the settlement house mentality. As a President's wife for many years, she was inclined to view the whole United States as a social work project". As for Eisenhower, Carson says that although "he referred to himself sometimes as being 'basically conservative'" and "favored a greater separation of powers than recent presidents had practiced", he soon abandoned all pretense to being an opponent of socialist legislation, as his administration "shifted away not only from any foray toward dismantling the Welfare State but also from vigorously restraining it. Indeed, Eisenhower was detectably moving toward modest extensions if not expansions of welfarism."

Kennedy is shown as a "somewhat inept, inexperienced and at best mediocre" president who was turned into a national hero by Johnson's politically motivated exploitation of his televised martyrdom.

As for "McCarthyism", instead of describing it as a paranoid and totalitarian witch-hunt, Carson shows how liberals managed to shift public indignation and fears from the very real threat of Communism to McCarthy's occasionally excessive methods, and have used what Ayn Rand called the pseudo-concept of McCarthyism as "a convenient weapon to beat anyone over the head with who begins to gain an audience for charges against" communists.

But the greatest treat in the book is Carson's chronicling of the intellectual and political rebirth of conservatism from the 1940s to the 1980s. Here you will find information on the pillars of modern conservatism, from Friedrich Hayek to Ludwig Von Mises, Ayn Rand, William F. Buckley, Russell Kirk, Leonard Read and others I had never heard of, and the various books and reviews in which they defended their ideas. Carson's treatment of Rand is unfortunately unfair and not very well informed. He presents her as an emigrant "from Europe", for instance, instead of stressing her first-hand experience of Soviet tyranny. And like many critics, he fails to grasp the difference Objectivism makes between altruism and benevolence.

But such flaws as Carson's *Basic History of the United States* evinces are so minor in comparison with the massive distortions of liberal textbooks that this six-volume history stands high above any of its competitors.

A straight forward, easy to read and understand explanation and description of 20th century US history. Why this is not taught is state run schools is strange since it is the most honest, comprehensive analysis of the strange events of the US government during the 1900's. He is completely objective in his work. He does not go into controversies such as FDR setting up the Pearl Harbor Attack in order to intentioanlly drag the US into WWII. He simply states what the record indicates in an extremely well written style. Carson is probably most knowledgable historian of this generation. This and his other works are must reads.

In Struggle recounts the progression of the SNCC from its early days of assimilationism and conventional middle class values, through its radical and militant period, its separatist and provocative period, and then back again into conventionalism and low-level activism. Many SNCC members during its radical period, debated whether the victim should become the executioner. Instead, the victim becomes part of the system, such as Marion Barry's accession to the mayor's office in Washington, D.C. And the idealism of the movement went out the window as well, when in the 1990s much more mundane pursuits took over Barry's life, including crack cocaine and prostitutes. One reason for the winding-down of the SNCC may stem from the conditions that spawned it. Under an oppressive system of the Jim Crow South, the SNCC had a common enemy to fight, and clear goals to achieve. Once the 1964 Civil Rights Act had been passed, and subsequent advances were made at the legislative level, the goals and mission became less clear and less defined. Now that so much had been achieved, the SNCC began to fight amongst itself as each faction attempted to secure ever smaller slices of the revolutionary pie. The cautious liberalism of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations proved fatal to the more ambitious fervor of the SNCC; the legislation acted almost as a safety valve, relieving the pressure that had encouraged the formation of the SNCC. SNCC students were, in their heyday, overcompensating for all the resentment they had from being historically marginalized and held down. SNCC members had discovered their voice and used it passionately, but once people started listening to them, SNCC found itself in the position of not knowing what to say.

This book traces the rise and fall of SNCC:the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. At the time Carson wrote it, it was one of the few books on the Civil Rights Movement that didn't focus on Martin Luther King and SCLC, and as such provided a welcome addition, even corrective, to the mainstream narrative of the movement. It is also a brilliant analysis of the dynamics of a reform movement and the tensions between leader centered and group centered styles of leadership. The analysis of Bob Moses and his approach to grass roots empowerment is right on target and provides a whole new way for thinking about Freedom Summer and organizing in Mississippi. This book is not for the fainthearted--its academic prose is dense at times and details can be a little confusing for those unfamiliar with SNCC personnel, hence four stars and not five. Nonetheless, it's worth taking time with, and I assign this book regularly for upper level directed studies and recommend it to students for research papers. Whether or not SNCC's achievements were compromised by the antics of former members in the 80s and 90s, Carson's book is a great analysis of its formation, tactics, and dissolution.

This book is a great account of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, which was started in 1960 in regard to Segregation on Americas buses and in the Woolworth dining room. This book leaves out no account, and anyone who had anything to do with the movement and SNCC is mentioned in this book. Carson went all out, and I think this book should be required reading in every Civil Rights History course.

A grotesque human triangle in a primitive Southern town...A young boy learning the difficult lessions of manhood...A fateful encounter with his native land and former love...These are [arts of the world of Carson McCullers - a world of the lost, the injured, the eternal strangers at life's feast. Here are brilliant revelations of love and longing, bitter heartbreak and occasional happiness - tales that probe the very heart of our lives. It was a good story. she was not a very good person - nor was he. He a sponge who only cared about himself and she was a niggerdly woman, although the town really needed her.

Carson McCullers is a wonderfully compassionate author and this novel showcases the best of her abilities.

"Bright Gem of the Western Seas" is a compilation of newspaper articles written by James Carson for the San Joaquin Republican from January 17 to May 29, 1852, and reports on the Tulare Valley by George Derby. The articles written by Carson occupy the bulk of the volume, and are by far the more colorful and illuminating.

Mr. Carson holds a minor place in California history, having been an early inhabitant, gold panner, and explorer for whom some landmarks are named. He is not writing as someone concerned with his place in history, as a Stanford, Ralston or Hearst might have been. He is just telling it "like it is," or at least as he sees things to be.

And that is what makes this work so interesting. It is anything but politically correct. He speaks of the native Indian population in fairly disparaging terms that, I gather, were typical of the time. He defends the lynch mobs. Conversely, he complains of the racist Foreign Miners Tax as discouraging the immigration of Chinese miners. Go figure.

Better yet, don't try to figure it at all. Just take him for what he was . . . a man of his time. And, if you have an interest in California history and, especially, the Gold Rush, you'll probably enjoy having this book in your library.

Nothing is better for historical reference to the mood and texture of a particular time than the public writing of that time. This is, I agree, politically incorrect and quite telling. If you want to know what was seen, heard and felt by the people in California in 1846, (a year before the Mormon Pioneers got to Utah,) and 1852, then give this a read. Go and rent, "Paint Your Wagon," and make a night of it.

From the subtitle and cover blurb, I was expecting this collection of essays to reflect the diversity of spiritual paths. Instead, 90% of the essays are Pagan, with a couple of Buddhist ones and one Jewish essay. I don't have anything against Paganism, but it is not my path, it just doesn't move my spirit. There is some good stuff in here, but I found there was too much emphasis on externals, such as rituals for different occasions and Tarot cards, and not enough on the day-to-day inner work of parenting. Also, Carson's dig at stay-at-home mothers ("studies have shown that most housewives actually spend more time watching television than they spend with their children") was unexpected and uncalled for in a book on spiritual parenting. For many, staying at home with their children and accepting the sacrifices involved is an important part of their spiritual path. Finally, Carson has included an excellent section on the spirituality of biological motherhood, but has not given equal time to fathers and adoptive parents, who have different paths with equal beauty and significance.

Anne Carson had me hooked on this book within moments of reading the introduction. Her commitment to parenting, and to discovering her own path toward spiritual connectedness and understanding, is both moving and inspiring. This book is not designed to tell you how to raise your child in a spiritual home, but the collected essays are meant to inspire thought on the nature of spirtuality and what beliefs each parent may wish to impart. The different section headings, from the spirituality of conception and parenthood to early infancy and on through late adolescence, make this book relevant to people of all ages. Even if you don't have children, it is a wonderful resource for building community and for learning to share our spiritual beliefs in a space of connectedness and understanding. I find myself recalling specific passages time and again, and am often deeply moved by the philosophies and thoughts presented by the many essayists. The religious and spiritual ideas presented are varied and rich in their diversity, and the ideas for creating personal celebrations and rituals are inspiring. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It will change the way you view spirituality and parenting a new soul.

I did not get around to reading one of McCullers' books to several years ago and thought it was quite good. After hearing something regarding this writer's tragic life, I thought a biography would be interesting (morbid me). I must admit, however, I was somewhat amused, and sometimes annoyed, by one of this biographer's strategies. She went to great lengths to defend this author -- a person whom she had never met -- against criticisms drawn by contemporaries, collegues, and other biographers, many of whom knew Carson McCullers personally. She even went so far as to make personal attacks on some of these individuals. And on what did she base these conclusions? On the cold record, as she candidly admitted that most of the persons who knew Carson McCullers (and were interviewed at length by earlier biographers) have pased away. I would have enjoyed the biography better if the facts were set forth more objectively, and she had let her readers make their own conclusions. This biographer should have not felt the need to be constantly dending this author whose books will speak for themselves.

But the biography is not a bad book, as it was well written and drew some interesting conclusions. I guess she was attempting to say something new, and to the extent it will encourage a reader to go out and read McCuller's catalog, it serves its purpose.

This book tells of Carson McCuller's relationships with her family, friends and fellow authors & artists. Her contentious relationship with her husband, Reeves McCullers, the wanna-be author whom she married twice, is thoroughly discussed. Although her life was filled with pain from her "mysterious illness" and difficult relationships, the author shows how Carson had a strong desire to survive and keep writing. It was interesting to read about her life-long friendship with Tennesse Williams and her love-hate relationship with Truman Capote. The author gathered together the opinions of many people who knew Carson, whether they loved her or hated her, and shares them with us in this story of her life.