Crawfordsville, Athens of Indiana

Karen Zach, Montgomery County Indiana Historian has put together a
worthy book for her first foray into "real" publication. Karen is not
new to the people who research history in Montgomery County.

Karen, who is a teacher, and an enormous asset to the Community, is
well known among Historians, and Genealogists. Karen has been
coordinating the USGenWeb Project web page for the County for
some time, she is also a past President of the Daughters of the
American Revolution, Dorothy Q Chapter, and maintains that website
as well. Karen is Ambassador of much of the history and genealogy
in the County, and her close support of Crawfordsville's District
Library, and its extensive resources, is highly commendable.

Karen is to be commended for her efforts to get copious amounts of
data out to the public. In that spirit she took on the project of
composing a Crawfordsville history for the "Making of America"
series.

The Making of America series is a nationwide project of local
histories, and using vintage photos, and excerpts from many local
sources, Karen has done an excellent job for the community of
Crawfordsville.

For more than 150 years Crawfordsville has been a central place for
the cutting edge of culture in western Indiana.
From being the place where many generals of the Civil War began the
recruiting for that conflict, and the literary endeavors of General Lew
Wallace and others, to the influence and confluence of the railroads
and the General Land Office on the people of the entire region, she
touches all of these. The developments of Basketball as a sport, and
the archetectural impact of Crawfordsville, are also key points.

Karen leads us from the earliest days of the County, to the
modern-post September 11, 2001- era.
One part of the history leads us right into the next in a continuous
tapestry of what makes this City uniquely Hoosier. Wabash College,
an early institute of higher education, was a drawing point for the
great minds, and the environment of Crawfordsville must have been
ripe, rich, and sweet, because many inventions sprang from it, great
works of literature and art abound, and it seems that everyone has
something to add to the general progress of the region and
especially Montgomery County.

Taken as a place of history, and as an undeniable place IN history,
Crawfordsville is and was the "Athens of Indiana". Perhaps it is the
Athens of the whole USA.

Crawfordsville, Athens of Indiana,
Copyright © 2003, Karen Bazzani Zach
Arcadia Publishing,
Tempus Publishing, 2 Cumberland Street, Charleston, South Carolina,
USA. 29401

Library of Congress Catalog Card #2002116806

ISBN: 0738524174

The reason I had purchased this book was to attempt to get into the mind of the contemporary average Greek citizen (Specifically Athens) and to see how they thought, what their intellectual capacities were, and exactly what their capabilities were in the overall political process. I wanted to know if the titantic proportions of apathy that permeates the "democracies" of the world today existed at that time as well. If not, then what created this apathy, and what would be the appropriate pathway that would lead to the implementation of integrity into the political system? The book satisfied my curiousity, and I now have a much better understanding of the contemporary Athenian politica process. I must say, however, that I do not agree with the author's solution.

The following comes from the back cover of the volume.

The most comprehensive collection of papers in the field to date, this volume presents state-of-the-art research and commentary from more than fifty of the world's leading ethnobiologists. Covering a wide range of ecosystems and world regions, the papers center on global change and the relationships among traditional knowledge, biological diversity, and cultural diversity.
Specific themes include the acquisition, persistence, and loss of traditional ecological knowledge; intellectual property rights and benefits sharing; ethnobiological classification; medical ethnobotany; ethnoentomology; ethnobiology and natural resource management; homegardens; and agriculture and traditional knowledge.
The volume will be of interest to scholars in anthropology, ecology, and related fields and also to professionals in conservation and indigenous rights organizations.

Athens had already been bled white by the Archidamian war; it had lost its fleet and the flower of its youth in the Sicilian expedition. Here, Sparta rejoins the conflict as a full-blooded belligerent, and Persia weighs in as a sponsor. For all that, Athens still puts up a hell of a fight, scratching together a new fleet and defending its Aegean and Black Sea possessions with vitality and imagination. Yet, like Napoleon's armies after the Russian winter, a brilliant victory only defers the outcome, whereas it will only take one serious defeat for the whole war effort to collapse. At length, this defeat arrives when the Spartans get serious about naval tactics and recall Lysander to administer the decisive blow. Another great character in this saga, the Athenian exile Alcabiades, reappears, first as a Spartan advisor, then as a friend to the Persian King, then back to Athens as the prodigal son. Not until Talleyrand will one encounter such a serial turncoat.

E sevük dedük ya Daha ne istiyoðu

I am taking along the Eyewitness Travel Guide for "Greece: Athens & The Mainland" on our trip to Greece today because it shows us everything we are not going to see (Hang on, this will make sense). These DK volumes pride themselves on being "The guides that show you what others only tell you," being filled with over 1,000 photographs, illustrations, and maps. There are cutaways and floor plans of all the major sites that we are seeing, just as the Parthenon and the monastery of Varlaam. But in a week in Greece there is only so much you can see and if we not have time to visit everything in Athens and are only visiting two of the monasteries of Meteora, then this DK Eyewitness Travel Guide will show us something of what we are missing. There are sections on Ancient Greece and then Area by Area sections on Athens and Mainland Greece, along with a section on Travellers' Needs and a Surival Guide. So all the basic are covered along with the profuse illustrations.

Of course there are also sections on where to eat, where to stay, and how to get around. I especially liked the pages devoted to various types of local cuisine, which shows you what you would find on the classic Greek menu as well as the different type of dishes you should try in Central Greece versus the Peloponese. You can use this guide to scope out what you will find when you visit places like Mycenae, Olympia, and Delphi, but you might want to use it more as a reminder of what you have seen than spoiling some of the ancient treasures in store for you at these sites. For example, "discovering" the golden mask of Agamemnon or the statue of Hermes by Praxiteles might work better as a complete surprise. Then again, you would hate to miss some of these things. Of course, we compromise: I know what there is to see and my wife gets to be surprised. It works for us.

P.S. Back from Greece and everybody wanted to borrow our guidebook. Several are going to pick it up when they get back home because it serves as a nice reminder of what we saw (and what we did not see).

Volume two of the Emperor Julian's works collects several orations and satires which exhibit the keen sense of Julian's Pagan convictions and sentiments while at the same time imparting historical facts that otherwise would have been forgotten. Julian is the primary source for our understanding of "his" Paganism so it gives us a great impression of the declining Pagan age in general; through his orations we find him admonishing his fellow pagan philosophers to imbib a more puritanical Paganism, he exhorts the Athenians to rededicate themselves and their cities to the gods of their forefathers, and as "Pontifex Maximus" we find him at last teaching to the priesthood the principles of correct priestly conduct. Julian's satires - the "Misopogon"(Beard-Hater), and the "Caesars" - are intelligently hilarious and even enlightening...altogether Julian's works are a monumental contribution to the prose of late antiquity.

An important book for those attempting to understand ancient culture. Cohen uses insights from classical law and anthropological data that helps one to better understand the nature of legal proceedings in ancient Greece. A must for any Classics or Biblical studies student.

This is truly a masterly piece of work. At last the speeches of Lysias have been given the attention they have been long over due. The author has successfully produced a modern translation of the extant works of this great Greek logographer. Lucid and insightful this work is easily accessible for those with a general interest in Ancient History, as well as both A-Level Ancient Historians and undergraduate level students who possess no or limited knowledge of the ancient Greek language.

The author's most notable achievement is that of the quality of the translation. Textual emendations and inferred passages are clearly provided, as are the alternate readings and meanings of the Greek text. However, the erudition of both author and book are clearly evident. Each speech is preceded by a detailed introduction outlining important events referred to within the text as well as political ties and historical events that often form the background to the case in question. This often-invaluable introduction is used to highlight effectively the subtleties of the cases but it can be undisputed to state that the true appeal of the book is in its majestic grasp of language. The obvious skill of the author lies in his ability to capture the true atmosphere of the speeches whilst at the same time providing a clear and lucid translation.

Whether you possess a general interest in the ancient world or are a student in Classics or Ancient History is irrelevant - academic works simply do not come any better than this! A must for all bookcases!

I do not write in englis