Yesterday, 26 April, I wrote a review for you of this book under the above title, & I'm wondering if it is possible to add 2 words to the final sentence of that review. The final sentence said, "It breathes with life." What I'd like for it to say is, "It breathes with life and love." I hope it's possible to make this addition. Thanks!

First & most basically, this is a geography & history text, complete with dates, stats, maps, data, 329 footnotes & a 253-item biblio. But it is unlike any such book I've read. As the title says, it describes life on the land of central Siberia by focussing on the tiny village Djarkhan, representative of 250 such hamlets in the huge Republic of Sakha. Djarkhan is in "polar land," less than 300 miles south of the Arctic Circle (1200 miles north of Chicago!), with 8 or 9 months of what I can only call winter. How the people have managed to survive there since 1600, from pre-Czarist to post-Communist eras, is an enthralling, almost unbelievable, story. But the sub-text of the book tells another tale, of 3 Djarkhan natives -- a grandfather who was honored in distant Moscow as the Sakhala record-holder for hay cutting, a mother who was "the most famous plastic oral surgeon in Sakha," & a daughter who is the co-author of this book with her husband, a distinguished American geographer. Thus its 112 pages of text are enriched with 62 personal photographs, reminiscences by villagers & on-the-spot observations. It breathes with life.

I was lucky enough to have a chance to assist the authors in the manuscript typing for this book, getting to read it as I typed. Without any education in geography, this book was easy to understand, but educational at the same time. I have never enjoyed an academic book more than I enjoyed this one. The people and places in the book come to life as stories are told as only a native villager could tell them. A must read for anyone interested in cultural studies.

The Texas Republic by Joe L. Blevins is an informed and informative historical novel of the founding of Texas as told from the eyewitness perspective of Andrew, a freed slave who served as a soldier in the Texas Army. After meeting with Sam Houston to win a land grant, Andrew is wounded and his wife killed in ambush by robbers. A Cherokee hunting party finds Andrew, saving him from death and adopting him as a member of their tribe. Andrew marries Say-te-Qua, a Cherokee woman and the tribe's dream interpreter. When Sam Houston asks the Cherokee to scout for the Texas army, Andrew, having learned to read and write by copying letters from an old Bible that he had found, documents his experiences and observations in a personal journal. Andrew and his brother-in-law Red Bird assisted Sam Houston to broker a peace treaty when an Indian War broke out in Texas, records the events of Texas as a Mexican state, the decade of Texas as a free republic, and the annexation of Texas as the 28th state of the United States of America. This engaging and highly recommended story is based on true stories of actual characters and events, and is enhanced with selected illustrations; a replica of a letter Sam Houston wrote to Caddo Chief Bintah inviting him to the 1843 Great Council; and a "Glossary of Unfamiliar Words".

This one of the most interesting books I have read on Texas history. It was a great idea to write it from this previously under reported perspective.

I highly recommend this book.

This book has wonderful stories and drawings that help tell the interesting story of Texas, and the United States. The book tells many good historical events, yet it tells interesting details that most books do not talk about, or begin to say. It gives personal dialogue and insight into historical events, and persons. There are several maps, and a letter written by Sam Houston to a Caddo chief. It gives good insight to the attitude of the Red River Tribes, and insight into the amazing personality, Sam Houston. There is even a dictionary for people that do not speak "Texan." This book does what some books fail to do: it tells a logical, and understandable story from an eye-witness perspective. It was most enjoyable. I gave it as a gift to a number of friends. My personal copy has been borrowed by several persons, and it has been well read. You would like it too!

You'll Ever Find... as well as a good read--I can't believe it's out of print! Probably most appealing to grammarians, however. The format invites you to envelop yourself in this beautiful language and its proper usage. Each teaching point is illustrated with phrases in English translated to Spanish or quotes from Spanish literature translated to English. I can't say enough about the timeless quality of this detailed reference. I've never come across a textbook that's such a pleasure to read.

Ramsey is the quinessential reference for anyone who is serious about learning Spanish accurately and correctly. This marvellous book has been integral in my personal library since 1960. I used it as a student, as a professor of Spanish and as a researcher. My original copy is now being used by a grandson in the wilds of Nebraska; hence, the need for an additional copy.
If there were more stars to give this review, I'd mark them down. Ramsey does not just provide the standard explanations, he gives the history and the technical aspects of the language. The book's arrangement makes research very easy and comprehensive.

I've used this reference text since I started learning Spanish ten years ago, and it never fails me. It is best suited to those interested in grammatical mastery of the language, but is useful to any first-year student. It is well organized and easy to read. First published in 1894 and last updated in 1956, the book is entirely relevant to Spanish today. Its useful forays into etymology and grammatical history will leave you with a lasting understanding and memory of essential elements of the language. The book has been praised by educators and students for over a century. As the most recent reviser, Robert Spaulding, says in his introduction, "Down through the years Spanish teachers continue to refer to Ramsey as 'the ultimate and best accessible authority.'" It is my favorite Spanish reference book.

The Tyranny of Printers: Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic written by Jeffrey L. Pasley is a book that gives an overall picture of the power of the press in our early American Republic from the Revolutionary period to the Jacksonians. Newspaper based politics is a term used much in this book to describe the type and level associated with the local party.

The classic case of newspaper-based politics was when Thomas Jefferson used one paper in Philadelphia to do his bidding against Alexander Hamilton... not to mention that Jefferson got caught. Newspapers were the central source of news, outside of word of mouth, and a network of newspapers really gave both the candidate and the paper momentum and political life. The late eighteenth and early nineteenth century was a real hotbed where newspapers breathed, newpapers were the republic's central political institutions, working components of the political system rather than just commentators on it. This was true all the way to the end of the Jacksonian era of democracy.

This book has a narrative that flows quite well and keeps the reader well informed and is full of anecdotes. Jefferson, Madison and Monroe all used the press to their collective advantage as they striped the power away from the Federalists, but not only is this book about how they politician used the press. The most interesting story is how the author enlivens his narrative with accounts of the colorful but often tragic careers of the individual editors.

There is a companion web site that readers should consult at: [url] serving as an extension of the book... this site contains important supporting material information. The book has endnotes rather than footnotes concentrating all of the supporting information toward the back of the book. There is a very good bibliography with this book that supports the writing very well.

As time marchs on... reading this book give us a glimpse in the window of a time where political goals were linked to the newspapers and their editors making the full circle of the political process, linking parties, voters and the government together... the newspapers were the linchpin of early political power. This book is very informative and gives a rare look into the life at times of some of the more interesting minor players of early American Politics the editors.

I enjoyed reading this book as it still had a familiar theme but the players were the most interesting as the Americian political process still worked, a very interesting book, indeed.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch chose "Tyranny of Printers" as one of the best books of 2001 in its November 25 edition (...).

Jeff Pasley's "The Tyranny of Printers" is a fresh look at American politics and journalism in the early Republic. The traditional narrative of journalism in the early Republic is that a weak press tyrannized by political parties produced some of the most subservient and unfree journalism ever seen in America. Pasley turns this narrative on its head, arguing that printers and newspapers in fact created the modern party system. Far from being party stooges, printers were in fact politicians with a major stake in the issues of the day; far from politically subservient, printers provided the organizational glue that held the early parties together.

Pasley argues that newspaper editors provided the crucial ideological and organizational tools that were needed to negotiate the chaotic political waters of the early Republic in part because printers were the only truly professional politicians of the time. Parties lacked permanent organization in the early Republic; campaign season brought political operatives and candidates out of the woodwork, but for the rest of the year it fell to editors to mediate between politicians and constituents.
Newspaper offices, which often doubled as local post offices and as reading rooms for out-of-town papers, were logical locations for official party meetings and informal affairs. Editors were uniquely placed to gauge public opinion because of the volume of other papers that passed through their offices. By reprinting accounts of party rallies, toasts, speeches and marches, newspapers spread the party's message to many more people than ever could have seen the event in person and created an "imagined community" of party followers spread over the entire nation. The printing of toasts and speeches also allowed editor-politicians to simultaneously forge a national party ideology and to tone down the parts of that ideology that might not play well in certain states or regions.

Pasley argues that the first party to understand and use newspapers in politics was Thomas Jefferson's Republican party. The Republicans were able to deploy the press effectively as a weapon at least partly because of their willingness to let a certain class of people into the political arena - artisan printers. The Federalist newspapers that sprang up to counter the Republican press were generally run by young aristocrats who wrote and copied articles from other papers but didn't actually do the hard manual labor of setting type and printing papers. Republican editors, by contrast, tended to be printers themselves, raised in a declining artisanal tradition and realizing that the road to success might lead them down an untraditional path. By understanding artisanal editors to have played such a large role in the birth of political parties, Pasley provides fresh new evidence for the idea of a great democratization of politics occurring in the early Republic. The party editors of Jefferson's and Jackson's days were certainly not of the lowest class of people, but they were manual laborers who conformed to an old, hard-drinking tradition that was anathematic to refined Federalist or neo-Federalist aristocrats.

The most revolutionary aspect of Pasley's book may be found in the way it understands the relationship between journalists and politicians. The received wisdom of the journalism world focuses on notions of objectivity and partisanship; the era of the political press is seen as a low point of American journalism. Pasley's argument suggests that printers of that era may well have had more influence over politics and that ordinary voters may have been much more well-informed than voters are today. The union of journalism and politics that Pasley describes is one that held many advantages for both the printers and the parties of the day.

I'm doing some research into the years immediately prior to WW2 and needed a good recap of Weimar for context. This book was superb for the purpose. Not long after starting it I concluded that I might as well save my yellow hi-lighter and simply dip the whole book in florescent yellow ink. There is hardly a page that is not a superbly concise rendering of an important point. Peukert, who died at age 39, was a star of German history of the 20th century, and this book, intended as both a primer and a summary, shows why. Excellent grasp and presentation of both statistics and economics. Few if any hacknied answers to banal questions, but rather a probing for new questions as well as new answers. A willingness to say "I don't know" when that is the proper thing to say. Peukert's intellectual honesty shines through, and all his traits inspire confidence. This book is not, however, a delightful read, being so thoroughly boiled-down to its essence. It contains very little in the way of flowing narrative, witty vignette, or deft portraiture -- mostly it sticks pretty close to what might, with a wink and a nod, be called the "objective facts" of Weimar. It is nonetheless well written, crammed with information, and free of jargon (this last point not to be taken for granted in academic writing of the 70s and 80s) -- and apparently well-translated. A very good job of what it sets out to do. That said, I got very little in the way of the "flavors" of Weimar from it, and now feel the need to read something else for that -- perhaps Doblin's "Berlin Alexanderplatz" will provide that.

A masterly translation of a remarkable book! The radical shifts of Peukert's thought are lucidly rendered in an English as limpid as it is urgent.

Detlev Peukert's analysis of Weimar Germany exceeds any other in breadth and readability. His book not only examines the experiment of Weimar democracy from social, economic, political, and cultural angles, but provides an interesting thesis for why Weimar democracy failed, namely that Weimar Germany epitomized the crisis of classical modernity. I have read many books on Weimar Germany, most of which focus on one particular aspect. Peukert synthesizes all of the most important aspects into one, offering a clear account of why Hitler happened.

The Dutch Golden Age wasn't high on my list of favorites -- until this book came along.

This, in common with other volumes in the "Perspectives" series, offers high quality (though small) reproductions of important works, up-to-date analysis and discussion of the art and the contexts in which it was created.

It does all this while also offering two things that are rare in art books -- clear, well-written prose accessible to a lay audience, and a reasonable price. An excellent introduction to the subject, and a wonderful addition to any library.

This book has many strengths: a large number of color photographs, the latest scholarship, and a variety of interpretative considerations. Westermann organizes the book thematically instead of by genre, which allows the reader to grasp the wholeness of Dutch art. Weaknesses: landscape and the contributions of Rembrandt are not given their due. Overall, a fine work that is appropriate both for the layman and the scholar.

This is the best and most readable introduction to the art of the Dutch Republic that is available today. Highly recommended

As a former Seventh-day Adventist and current "card-carrying member of the ACLU" I have long pondered many of the themes dealt with by this very interesting book. I think Morgan and Marty deal with the subject-matter in a very unique and fairly non-offensive way and get quite a bit about Adventism right, although there are some errors. You guys know Adventist is pronounced with an emphasis on the first syllable and not the second, right? As in AD-vent-ist, not Ad-VENT-ist.

I think some of the more educated, liberal, and objective Adventists I know (especially ones secure in their faith) would enjoy this book. People interested in the intersection of religion and politics in general would definitely find it an easy, entertaining read.

I plan on passing it on.

"Faith-based organizations?" The odd term had not yet entered the media lexicon. American politicians had only seen a glimmer of the power offered by open alliances with conservative religious groups. But, in this adventurous probe of the odd-couple pairing of Seventh-day Adventism, a quintessentially American institution, and the Republican party, Dr. Morgan opens a clear panoramic view of one church's struggle with these reformation-esque issues.

Separation of Church and State? Money to do "good" things? Where do well-meaning people draw the lines? How do they decide? What goes on behind closed doors - in the cloistered halls of power on Capitol Hill and in the hushed offices of ecclesiastical politics?

Doug Morgan's "Adventism and the American Republic" is a scrupulously documented look at one church's awkward lurching toward civic engagement. The view ranges from sweet to painful and back again. But Doug's description carries the reader through the arc with a sense of being there -- in the rooms, reading the letters and watching the frustrating twists, embarrassing turns, and occasional successes in this theological/political pretzel.

If you've every wondered what "Faith Based" means for the future of American social or religious institutions, this book is a must read. If you don't care about church and state, but like a curious American tale, it's even better.

Somebody should make the movie!

Though some of the statistics used in the appendix were outdated when this book was publised, this book is well worth the cost and the time to read it. A different perspective is presented, made, at least in part, possible due to the amount of time and fieldwork that the author was able to use in writing this book. The point is well made that the situation in many of the former Soviet republics was far more complex at the time this book was written than many thought. This was true in 1995, and remains so today.

Written in 1995, a lot of the details are now outdated, especially political. However, the same trends and underlying causes remain, which makes this book an excellant one if one is seeking to understand the background for the regions discussed in this book.

This book gives an fantastic insight to the recent ethnic wars that followed by the break-up of the Soviet Union. The book also gives us a sobering view that the breakaway republic conflicts against Russia will continue into the near future.

I found this book to be a very interesting accounting of the war in Vietnam through the eyes of airborne advisors and Vietnamese airborne soldiers. Having been there as an advisor to an airborne battalion, the recollections of others reminded me of many events that occurred while performing those duties. I thank Mr. Strode for putting together a book that will preserve some of the history of Americans and Vietnamese.

The best book available in English on the elite of the Republic of Viet Nam Armed Forces. Though it lacks informatio on the last two years of the war like the hard fought battle of Hill 1062 in the First Corp in 1974. Also lacking was the biography of all Airborne Division battalion commanders. Still it deserve high praise for giving credit long overdue to the heroic ARVN paratroop soldiers. The best fighters in the Viet Nam War.