This book contains many useful facts about the city of Chicopee. From its early beginnings as a town to its development into a city this book covers it all. Included are some very useful pictures that help this book walk you through the cities history. I would recommend this book to anyone with a love for the city of Chicopee.

This magnificent collection of beautiful color photos of Christmastime thorughout Connecticut is sure to bring back
memories. Also for those who wonder if Connecticut is really
as special and magical as its made to be in the movies. Yes-
of course it is! ...and the photos in this book will show
you why Christmastime in Connecticut has inspired movies!
HINT: Best when read next to the fireplace or tucked into bed
with a cup of tea.

Visited New York twice with tour group, bought this book for planning purposes to visit city again with only my wife and child. This is a great guide and planning book. Has all the different sections laid out with facts and pictures. Easy to read, orderly, and interesting. Don't think you could find or buy a better book for this purpose. Everthing you need to plan a visit or vacation to the most interesting city in the world. Fun to read!! Even if you are not planning a trip, it is full of facts and interesting things of the city. GREAT BOOK!!!!!!

Being of Cherokee decent and having been raised in the heart of the Cherokee nation, I was immediately intrigued when I saw this title. The mystery of the internal conflicts and relations within the Cherokee Nation has been an interest of mine ever since I was a child hearing the oral stories. The stories were confusing then, and after reading Gaines' book, I now have a better grasp of the situation that was responsible for tearing apart the land I was reared-in and the people who were rearing me. Gaines does an excellent job of researching a subject that has very few sources available, and his writing style is smooth and concise. This is a very dense book; the information is packed in tightly. However, for a book on regimental history, I found it an easy read full of insight into a nation that to this day is still divided on issues that plagued them before the Civil War.

This is a well written and informative book that brilliantly details many of the wonderful things Connecticut has to offer. A++++

Countering Colonization provides refreshing insights about the interplay among Native nations, early contact, and ecological changes induced by the colonizer's commerce and religion. Carol Devens sets forth an evolving tapestry with regional differences that occurred across decades. Part of the shifting tapestry was ecological, as indigenous life ways became increasingly affected by traders' commercialization of hunting and trapping. Concurrently, many Native Nations were affected by zealous Christian missionaries whose message and methods were directed against Native life-ways and religiosity. Although her primary and well-argued thesis calls attention to Native women's role in resisting colonization, her essay is equally important for its summary portrayal of colonization's impact upon ecological balance and how that change altered male/female relations within Native communities. Devens also provides informative critiques helpful for interpreting cultural biases and insights provided by various early and mid-20th Century anthropologists who described Native ways. Probably, Countering Colonization is more useful for intermediate and advanced students of Turtle Island's native history. For persons wanting insights into indigenous ways of knowing, Buhner's "One Spirit, Many Peoples" and Abram's "The Spell of the Sensuous" are recommended. In contrast, Devens' book stands with Allen's "The Sacred Hoop" in providing an overview of societal and interpersonal changes that occurred within Native Nations as colonization endured. Fortuitously, by Countering Colonization, Native women (and men) have helped preserve Native Nations' more healthy ways of knowing and acting. Perhaps someday, after polluting one too many rivers, the colonizers' descendants will come to their senses.

What other state can claim as many notable small towns as does the Empire State? Cooperstown, Lake Placid, Sleepy Hollow, Woodstock, Watkins Glen, Chautauqua, Corning, Saratoga Springs, West Point, Oyster Bay, several Hamptons, Ticonderoga, Seneca Falls-- Norman Rockwell (who lived a short walk across the state line) might just have been a tad jealous. Only the first and last make it into this book, and just as well. When Country Roads Press sends America's top small-town journalist through America's top small-town state, you don't want to waste him on places you already know.

Bill Kauffman (of Batavia and Elba) has milked a career out of keeping the leaders of the land's great Lost Causes from, as he puts it, "going down the memory hole", in books such as America First! and With Good Intentions, and in frequent pieces in The Wall Street Journal, American Enterprise, Chronicles, Liberty and other magazines. Here he applies the same special talent to a "second tier" of New York villages, and one wonders if he chose these particular communities for an unusual richness in odd stories and characters, or whether he'd have dug these up anywhere he went.

Kauffman's at his best at home in the western snout of the state, where he unlocks the somewhat feudal nature of Geneseo, LeRoy and Angelica. (The obscurer the town, the more fun he has with it.) The pump industry of Seneca Falls, a quarter of the world's total, gets as much of his attention as the distaff business there. And why not? Sanitation has saved more lives than medicine. Hundreds of millions owe their lives to this important town, celebrated for the all the wrong reasons.

His subjects have given us three presidents, Mormonism, women's suffrage and colored gelatin, but if there's something else of note in town, Bill'l let us know. (And if it's in the next town over, he'll cheat and go there.)

Further afield Kauffman's more the tourist, especially across the "soda/pop" line, which is not as close to the city as he imagines. Cooperstown is not quite as cute as he paints it-- indeed, one of its charms is the relative lack of the boutique pollution that has ruined many similar places. And couldn't he find a "country town" left on Long Island? That in itself is sad. However, his analysis of the Burned-Over District is so sharp it will inspire the reader to try his hand at the built-over districs as well.

Finally, some things to look for which aren't in the book (and may no longer exist):

Westfield-- the weird, wing-shaped Theatre Motel and Drive-In on the lake;

Bath (in the Hammondsport chapter)-- the Chat-a-Wyle Café and its grape pie;

Palmyra-- where Winston Churchill's grandparents married, perhaps not in one of the four churches at the intersection;

Oneonta (in the Cooperstown chapter)-- the book mentions the NY-P League team there, but check out their Depression-era ballpark in the Susquehanna valley, one of the handsomest settings in all the sport. (And in "Soccertown, USA", no less.)

This book is like having a local tour guide in your car. The text is conversational as it points out places to stop and historic trivia about the towns. Organized into twelve regions around the state, the detailed driving directions navigate you through the towns on local roads. Road names and route numbers are used as well as landmarks. Each chapter begins and ends with directions to the main highways. We were able to plan a trip that pleased adults, pre-teens and young children. It gives you the places to eat, sleep or shop that usually only locals know about.

Have you ever wondered why county courthouses differ so much from each other? This marvelous book will help you understand that the decisions central to the design and construction of public buildings are influenced by the local perception of image, the politics of money and the functions counties are responsible for carrying out.

Initially, courthouses were the locus of two major functions. Providing a public space for trials, and the recording and storing of public records, particularly those connected to property.

This book examines each of Pennsylvania's 67 county courthouses and provides a lively informed discussion of the design and building of the courthouse, the interior decor, the grounds and the history of the naming of the county and selection of the town as the count seat. The author, a political scientist, who taught and studied local government infuses that background throughout the book.

There are numerous illustrative photographs that help the reader understand the differences in design and emblishment. This is a gem of book that is handy to use when driving in Pennsylvania. For those who work or spend considerable time in courthouses, particularly those in PA, this book is a must read.

Cranford is a town that has maintained that small town feeling over one hundred years after its founding. This book, and its predecessor, shows how Cranford has changed, and how in many ways it has remained unchanged. The Rahway River continues to define much of the town's character. The Victorian downtown looks little different in pictures from the 1920s. Fridlington and Fuhro have captured Cranford through the photos selected in these books. Both old time and new residents will appreciate both collections.