I read this book every year as a little girl. I enjoyed reading about the little black girl who lived with her family and the little white girl who was her friend. One was a foster child living with a foster mother she came to love; the other had a family that was the envy of her friend at times. These children had different lives, but it didn't matter -- they were just friends -- getting into some of the scrapes little girls get into. It's an excellent book for girls ages 9 - 12. I think foster children would also enjoy reading it or having it read to them.

This book is great if you are looking for basic information on any ghost town or "live" town in Colorado. With it's county-by-county format, it is always easy to find the information that you might be looking for, and it offers great little pieces of information for every imaginable location that has existed or still does in Colorado.

If you are looking for a hotel and restaurant guide, look elsewhere. And Las Vegas is only a piece of Richard Moreno's story, not the focus. Clearly the author is in love with the Nevada character and he does a great job of describing a pretty interesting place.

Now out of print and available only as a series of audiotapes, « Basic American Government » was initially published as a massive 480-page volume, not counting the notes, glossary, index, and the 60 pages of firsthand documents such as the Declaration of Independence, The Federalist N°10 or the Constitution itself. Its author, Clarence Carson, is the author of more than 500 articles and about 15 fifteen books, including a six-volume history of the United States.

The book is divided into four sections : - Section 1 (35p) deals with the basic principles of the American system of government. It starts by reminding the reader that the United States, contrary to the platitudes that are mouthed by today's journalists and politicians, « is not a democracy. It is a Constitutional Federated Republic. » Carson then goes on to explain what these concepts of « constitution », « republic » and « federalism » mean exactly, thus presenting the « sum and substance » of American govenment. - Section 2 (150p) delves into the intellectual background of the American political system, from authorities such as Aristotle to the English heritage of the 17th and 18th century, including 12 pages on John Locke, Trenchard and Gordon, William Blackstone and Adam Smith alone. The American colonial experience, the American Revolution and the Constitutional Convention are then summarized, but of course with much less detail than in Carson's « Basic History of the United States » or his « Rebirth of Liberty ». - Section 3 (130p) traces the evolution of the American system of government in the 19th century, from the establishment of the Federal Government after the ratification of the Constitution through the major decisions of the Supreme Court and the upheaval of the Civil War and Recontruction. - Section 4 (135p) deals with the 20th century and the advent of Leviathan (or big government), examining how socialism, by deliberately refusing to call itself by that name, entered the American mainstream ; and how Franklin D. Roosevelt « broke the constitutional dam » with his New Deal and the Court Packing Plan of 1937- a process culminating in a government that has become « out of control ».

First published in 1993, Clarence Carson's masterful volume « Basic American Government » ranks among his best, and is to my knowledge the most profound, principled and systematic treatment of the subject ever printed- far better than R.V. Denenberg's « Understanding American Politics », and incomparably superior to David Cushman Coyle's pitiful « The United States Political System and How it Works».

True to the founding principles of the Founding Fathers, enlightened by a genuine understanding of economic principles (Carson is well-read in both the classical economists and the Austrians, and is the author of a helpful treatise on « Basic Economics »), it opens with what I consider to be the most powerful statement ever printed on the current condition of the US government : « It would be considerable fraud to do a book on American government which talked as if the Constitution were still being substantially observed, that pretended that when Presidents took the oath of office they intended to observe the bounds set by the Constitution, that Congressmen recited their pledges with the same intent, and that Federal judges were still construing the Constitution as it was written. In sum, any book on American government worthy of the name ought to make clear how remote from the Constitution the government has become. »

Carson's own suggestions as to how to restore the integrity of the US political system are extremely simple. As he says, the text of the Constitution itself is still intact, so what is necessary is merely to make US government officials obey it. Did you know for instance that, in the Constitution, « there is no authority granted to levy taxes or to contract debts to provide for any foreign country » and that « the United States is specified alone as the beneficiary for all tax collections » ? (p445) More specifically, Carson suggests repealing the 17th Amendment (which undermined the federal system by reducing the power of the states to check the central government) and making it a treason for any US government official to betray the Constitution.

In other words, the way for Americans to bring the government back to its function of protecting their rights to « life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness » is simply to make their servants obey the charter which was initially adopted to limit their powers.

"Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as paper money, any more than there is such a thing as a paper horse, paper potato ... paper man or any other commodity, except paper paper, which is clearly a redundancy." - Clarence B. Carson

The author of several "basic" volumes (*Basic History of the United States*, *Basic Communism* and *Basic American Government*), historian Clarence Carson steps out of his own discipline with *Basic Economics*, a well-structured introduction to economics that should be of particular interest to students of history.

Organized in three parts, this 390-page volume begins with something one rarely finds in an economic textbook: what Carson calls the "framework of economics", or the metaphysical, ethical and political preconditions for the existence of economic activity and economic science. One of these, contrary to what anarcho-capitalists claim, is government. Indeed, Carson explains, the functions of government, by their very nature, cannot be performed by private firms, mostly because they do not involve the provision of goods or services, but of products which according to him might better be called "bads".

Part II is devoted to economics per se, i.e. the production and distribution of goods and services. Beginning with the concept of scarcity and a refutation of the fallacy of abundance, it examines the four ways of "getting what we want" (i.e. gifts, production, exchange and force), and then covers such fundamental issues as the origin and functions of money, the determination of prices on the free market, competition and monopoly, the three elements of production (land, labour and capital), entrepreneurship, the various sources of revenue and international trade.

Finally, Part III consists in an examination of the six major politico-economic systems: feudalism, mercantilism, free enterprise, capitalism, welfarism and communism. Contrary to Ludwig Von Mises and Ayn Rand, as this classification suggests, Carson consistently refuses to use the term "capitalism" to denote the free economy, because this would suggest that the latter favors capital over the other factors of production, and that the opposite system, communism, is somehow "anti-capital", which Carson demonstrates it is not.

The book also contains an appendix with a glossary of economic concepts, biographical sketches and an index.

Even though there are many excellent introductions to economics on the market (from Carl Menger's *Principles of Economics* to George Reisman's *The Government Against the Economy* or Henry Hazlitt's *Economics in One Lesson*), Carson's is the one I would recommend more specifically to students of history, who are prone to absorbing erroneous economic notions from the Keynesian or Marxist assumptions of history textbooks. Here, economics is laid flat, so to speak, so that its internal structure and its basic arguments can be examined rationally and explicitly, within the context of numerous historical examples, mostly borrowed from US history.

Some of the author's positions are invalid (he would probably have retracted his criticism of speculation if he had simply read Reisman on "The Specific Productive Role of the Stock Market", pp466-7 of his magnum opus, *Capitalism*), and I am still uncertain about some of the issues he raises (such as fractional reserve banking and limited liability companies). However, I found much of interest in this book, and apart from George Reisman's aforementioned *Capitalism* (a massive volume which definitely requires much more time and effort), I cannot think of a single work on the subject I would recommend more enthusiastically to the uninitiated.

"Belfast Confetti", along with Carson's 1987 "The Irish For No", are the most impressive volumes of poetry I have read in recent years. I could (and do, as an English student) pour over the poems for hour. He is wonderfully skilled at interconnecting his work and setting a real sense of place. Carson explores Belfast and the way the city and its people have changed in the last four decades or so since his youth. He is concerned not with judging the changes, but in examining the ways in which the Troubles, the English presence, and modernization have affected Belfast/Northern irish culture and the way his own memory betrays the truth as it falters. These are rich books, they keep you looking over & over for more layers. I also reccommend, if you can find it, his 1997 prose work, "The Star Factory". Its themes and subjects tie right back in with BC and TIFN.

I've used this book as a resource for teaching about slavery in an elementary school class. The thoughts conveyed are not the usual rhetoric presented in most lower level school social studies texts. Until recently children have not been exposed to the idea that slavery existed in parts of the world other than the USA. The long history of slavery - in the world and especially in Africa itself is new to many people. We learn much about slavery that has not before been related to school children, if not adults. The children in my classroom have been very absorbed by the thoughts presented in these pages. This is a must-read for Middle or High School students studying Aftican American history. As a teacher I would be sure to use it in my class.

"Bound for Glory 1910-1930" is part of the "Milestones in Black American History," a 16-volume exploration of the black experience from Ancient Egypt to the present. Each volume focuses on a specific period of African-American history, and this book by Kerry Candaele covers the vast migration of blacks from the rural South to the cities of the North. Fifty years after the Emancipation Proclamation, racial segregation remained the norm in the South, which remained isolated and economically backward. During these two decades over a million black southerners moved north to escape the constraints of persecution, poverty, and cultural emptiness. Although they also faced racism and discrimination in the North, blacks made significant achievements in World War I, art, music, literature, political, business, entertainment, and sports. The result, Candaele argues, was that blacks forged a new respect for themselves and their African-American identity.

This volume offers eight chapters: (1) The Great Migration overviews the search for a less racist society with greater economic opportunities in the North; (2) Safe for Democracy? looks at the performance of blacks on the battlefields of World War I; (3) After the War looks at how white racists responded to the new racial pride of the blacks; (4) Marcus Garvey and Pan-Africanism focuses on the leader of the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and one of the most important black figures between the wars; (5) That's Entertainment looks at not only comedies with Stepin Fetchit and "Our Gang," but birth of both the Harlem Globetrotters and the Negro Leagues of baseball players; (6) Harlem talks about the famous New York community, while; (7) Renaissance looks at the writers and artists, such as Langston Hughes and Louis Armstrong, that created the cultural explosion of the Twenties; and (8) A New Struggle Begins looks at the impact of the Great Depression. This book is illustrated with dozens of black & white photographs, not only of key black figures but also of race riots and lynchings.

These books are marvelous supplementary sources for American History textbooks for which the black experience is usually a relatively minor consideration. Yes, young students will read about familiar names like World Heavyweight Champion Jack Johnson, pitcher Satchel Paige and "Duke" Ellington, but they will also learn about World War I hero Sgt. Henry Johnson, author and teacher Jessie Fauset the "midwife of the Harlem Renaissance," and educator Mary McLeod Bethune. Candaele does an excellent telling the story of both these people and the times in which they lived.

I loved this book when I read it. It's about a Catholic theological student who eventually leaves his studies in order to live life as an openly gay and politically active young men. This was a nice coming-of-age novel. It's very 1970s-gay-liberation and may feel outdated to many. The public sex that is celebrated in this book would horrify many in this AIDS era. Still, it was good for its time. If people can enjoy Holleran's "Dancer from the Dance" and Edmund White's books, then they can really appreciate this.

As a primary school teacher, I own nearly every Carson-Dellosa book that's been printed. They are the best books around because they are full of fun activities and the pictures are adorable. The children will get practice with letter recognition, cut and pasting and matching of lower and uppercase letters. My four and a half year old likes to do a few pages at one sitting, but she needs a bit of help with the instructions. A five or six year old would be able to do the work more easily, but it would still be challenging for them. It's worth the money!