Academics have never been thrilled with Stephen Vincent Benet (1898-1943), whose polished but accessible writings--notably his magazine short stories--went straight to the heart of Everyman and Everywoman.
Everyman remembers; and in the wake of the tragedy of 9/11 this neglected master seems to have more to say than ever--about his country and the world, their history and their destiny.
One academic who is ready to listen is David Garrett Izzo. He appears to have thought about doing a collection of essays on Benet as long ago as 1998, when he played a prominent role in a Benet centenary observance in the Bethlehem, PA area. The resulting book, in which Izzo shares the editing responsibility with Lincoln Konkle, should do something at last to stir up interest in this once-famous writer on the campus. The essays cover many aspects of Benet's output and career--from the famous Civil War narrative "John Brown's Body" to his historical and science fiction stories, such as "The Devil and Daniel Webster" and "By The Waters of Babylon." But to this reviewer three of the essays are paramount in interest. They are Izzo's own piece on Benet and his literary colleageus at Yale; Thomas Carr Benet's remembrance of his father, and Patricia McAndrew's paper on the marriage of Stephen and Rosemary Benet.

This is a pictorial of 18 Old Testament stories. It contains a large 8 1/2" by 11" print of each masterpiece painting to accompany each story. The following is a list of each artist's name and the oil painting's title. Included are : Raphael's - Creation of the Earth; Bruegel's - Tower of Babel; Poussin's - Eliezer & Rebecca at the Well; Rosselli's - Crossing of the Red Sea; Rosselli's - Moses with the Tablets of the Law and the Adoration of the Golden Calf; Rembrandt's - Belshazzar's Feast; Ruben's - Daniel in the Lion's Den; Pontormo's - Joseph's Brothers Beg for Help; Tiepolo's - Finding Moses; Cima's - David and Jonathan (Goliath slain); Giorgione's - Judgment of Solomon; Robusti's - Creation of the Animals; Kessel's - Garden of Eden; Cranach's - Adam & Eve in the Garden; Savery II's - The Animals Entering the Ark; Bassano's - Noah & Family after the Flood; Olivier's - Abraham & Issac; Koch's - Landscape with Ruth and Boaz The accompanying text is the King James translation which might be a bit archaic for adults let alone students. Yet, the recount is true and not a writer's paraphrase. The appendix with the thumbnail prints and summary of each artist's life and his technique is a wonderful at-a-glance summary and index of the contents. These masterpieces bring to life the inspiring Old Testament stories, are a great way to study religious paintings and to come to know the Old Testament teachings. This is a great resource for teaching art history. Also, it is a good way to study religious history and to whet the appetites of Junior High students through adults. It will open their eyes to the works of the masters of the renaissance on through to the landscape painters of the mid 1800's. The vibrant prints are gorgeous and a wonderful size to enable the viewer to take in the full affect of the painting without going to the museum to see the original masterpiece oil painting.

What a wonderful book. All the poetic writing of Sandburg in a very informative study of the Lincoln Administration during the Civil War. You will find less details on specific battles but many more details on the politics and behind the scenes characters. You won't want to put this one down. Get to know Lincoln, his Cabinet and his Generals.

If you want to know what Lincoln and his family were really like, read this amazing book. Ms. Taft wrote this book in 1931. She played with the Lincoln boys in the White House as a 16 year-old. Her descriptions of the everyday life of the Lincoln's, the White House and the times they lived make you feel as if you ARE there. It's an amazing step back into a time that has been written about by many others, but not from such a perspective. Truly wonderful, simple and illuminating.

A novelist most of her career, the late Victoria Lincoln spent years writing this carefully researched and intuitive portrait of the greatest of Catholic Saints (my own opinion)and the founder of the discalced Carmelite order of nuns. Teresa was poorly understood in her own time, and canonized for the wrong reasons, which is why she continues to be misunderstood by most people today. In a recent book on leadership, Garry Wills referred to her in a dismissive manner that revealed his own ignorance of her life, an ignorance promoted by the very church that claims to revere her. Working from Teresa's writings, including her letters (and reading skillfully between the lines) Lincoln convinces the reader that here was a human being for all times, a woman of very human impulses and emotions who transcended her limitations to explore the very nature of faith, asking questions of herself that would terrify most of today's public "Christians". She also had to face the constant threat of the Inquisition, who on more than one occasion came close to condemning a woman who would someday become an icon of the Spanish Church, along with her friend John of the Cross. The book is so painstaking in its recreation of Teresa's life that it can be difficult to follow at times. Lincoln not only has to tell a story but to make a case for her interpretation of it, but her humor and empathy, the quality of her research, and the painful beauty of her prose more than reward the reader for persistance. Some Catholics may be shocked at the revelations in the book (Teresa may have been less than chaste as a novice, and was falsely suspected of sexual misconduct later on), but this is no tawdry expose but an honest look at a woman who in spite of her conviction of her own unworthiness, strove for an ever closer communion with God, without ever losing sight of her humanity. You should meet her; read this book.

A fictional account of the Lincoln County War from the perspective of the Pecos Valley, this book contains more truth than the cold hard facts, with the exception of providing a happy ending for those who deserved it. A chilling tale of revenge and lost romance, its theme is of ultimate forgiveness and peace found in the discipline of daily love. A truly moral tale.

This book is a true masterpiece; an adventure book which is as readable as it is fascinating. Whilst it tells of true-to-life danger on an ill-fated expedition to arctic Greenland its language is both unpretentious and highly accurate, but it is not remotely dull.When reading this book one feels a most desperate urge to not only go to Greenland but also to indulge in the sometimes reckless activities of Amundsen and Ellsworth. Unfortunately this is an adventure from a forgotten age, when icebreakers could not sail to the north pole, helicopters did not patrol the North Atlantic and satelite-phones did not provide constant contact with the "real world". The book shows, beautifully, the danger of this perilous situation without wallowing in the courage of its subjects, Amundsen and Ellsworth. For this reason I believe that it is a fantastic book to be read and cherished.

The thing that most stands out about "The United States Enters the World Stage 1867-1919: From the Alaska Purchase through World War I" is that Christopher Collier & James Lincoln Collier put the First World War on the same level with the Spanish American War. This is the sort of idea that makes you stop and think about all the ways in which the two world wars were substantially different, especially from the American perspective. This 18th volume in The Drama of American History series is one of seven volumes that covers in some way the period from the Alaska Purchase to the end of the First World War, which this effort focusing on foreign policy instead of reconstruction, industrialization, immigration, progressivism, etc. The more volumes I read in this series (which, obviously, I am not going through in chronological order), the more I appreciate this more thematic approach to American history. I also like the "core content" emphasis, where students are given the big picture rather than an onslaught of names and dates.

"The United States Enters the World Stage" has five chapters: (1) The United States Looks Westward actually goes back to the start of the 19th century with the first efforts to expand upon the Louisiana Purchase. The chapter covers the dispute over the Oregon Territory, American trade interests in the Pacific with China and Japan, the purchase of Alaska (a.k.a. "Icebergia"), and the issue of the annexation of Hawaii. This last topic is presented as being representative of the national debate over colonization. (2) The Growing Call for Imperialism considers the effort by Westerners to colonize the rest of the globe to be arguably the most important movement in the world in the 1800s. As the "frontier" in the U.S. "closed," the idea of manifest destiny was expanded to include the Pacific. However, the chapter also covers the anti-imperialists (such as Mark Twain), who found annexation and colonization to be inherently anti-democratic. (3) The Spanish-American War tells the story of the "splendid little war" where only 379 of the 5,462 Americans who died actually died in battle and which resulted in the U.S. picking up territorial possessions in both the Caribbean and the Pacific. (4) Diplomatic Styles: Big Sticks, Dollars, and Morality looks the period between the two wars in terms of the foreign policy of the three presidents. Thus we have Theodore Roosevelt's military invention, William Howard Taft's effort to use the power of money instead of bullets, and Woodrow Wilson's determination not to recognize governments that came to power illegitimately. This chapter also details the building of the Panama Canal. (5) World War I contrasts the American impulse towards isolationism with "the war to end all wars." In this chapter the public debate between Wilson and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge over the United States joining the League of Nations becomes more important than the war itself. Collier and Collier make a point of emphasizing that the United States being in the League would not have necessarily prevented the rise of Fascism in Europe and the Second World War, but they admit it is one of the more provocative "what ifs" in 20th century American History.

The chapters in this volume make it clear that the tension between the imperialists and th anti-imperialists was decided in favor of the interests of big business. The United States was much more interested in expanding economically rather than militarily. The Colliers do a nice job of touching on the main concerns of both sides of the question as it was argued out and acted upon over the course of this lengthy period of American history. The book is illustrated with historical photographs, paintings and cartoons (including one showing the ghost of President James Monroe wondering if the Monroe Doctrine really should be applied to the United States acquiring Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines). Putting together classroom sets of The Drama of American History series might prove difficult for most secondary schools, but the value of this "core center" approach to the subject can certainly be useful to most teachers.

The strength of The Drama of American History series by Christopher and James Lincoln Collier for putting things in historical perspective is certainly clear in this volume on "The United States in the Cold War, 1945-1989," which reduces both the Korean and Vietnam wars to single chapters. The time period under consideration is clearly defined as starting with the end of World War II and ending with the rebirth of the Russian Republic from the ashes of the Soviet Union. It is rather ironic that the Cold War is over since the Colliers do an excellent job of explaining the origins and history of their topic.

The Cold War is broken down into six chapters: (1) The Causes of the Cold War is basically a primer on the history of Communism, explaining why it resulted in a successful revolution in Russia and had appeal to workers in the United States; (2) The Cold War Begins focuses on how the Soviet Union entrenches its position at the end of World War II and then began to actively seek to expand its sphere of influence, effectively dividing the world into East and West; (3) The Cold War Spreads to Asia covers both the rise of Communist China and the Korean War, arguing that a major mistake was made in the attempt to take down the Communist government of North Korea at the cost of a million lives; (4) The Arms Race and the Third World looks at the key points of contention between the two sides from the Middle East to Cuba; (5) The Tragedy of Vietnam focuses more on the political elements of the war than the military campaigns, with the end of the chapter trying to explain how the most powerful nation on earth was essentially defeated by underarmed guerillas; and (6) The End of the Cold War covers everything that happened from the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam and the Soviet's own quagmire in Afghanistan to the Berlin Wall coming down and the breakup of the Soviet Union. This last chapter really covers too much and the sense of causality between events gets lost a bit.

I appreciate the way in which "The United States in the Cold War" is able to focus on this subject and give students a sense for how U.S.-Soviet relations played out after the end of World War II. Not having to deal with domestic concerns while covering this topic is a big help. However, I do have one complaint about this particular volume, which is that it dismisses almost completely the pivotal role of Richard Nixon in paving the way for the end of the Cold War. To quote Mr. Spock, "Only Nixon could go to China." However, Nixon's policy of detente, with his historical visit to China along with his trip to the U.S.S.R., is reduced to a single paragraph, which focuses mainly on the SALT treaty. Along with Ronald Reagan's decision to push the "Star Wars" missile defense system, which causes the collapse of the Soviet Union's economy trying to keep up, Nixon's decision to engage the Communists, and to allow Pepsi and McDonalds to start operating in Moscow, was crucial in creating the environment that ended the Cold War. Between detente and Watergate, it is hard to think of another human being who had more of an impact on the world I live in than Richard Nixon.

The front half of the book has Spanish words defined in English and the second half has the Spanish translation of English words. This dual reference is very useful. I used this dictionary during the four years I lived in Ecuador and in Spanish classes I have taught. What I like most about it is how it specifies the uniqueness of words to particular regions. A word unique to a particular country will have a country designation next to it. A useful tool for the multi-country traveler. It is also small (the text is quite small, but well spaced), so not at all cumbersome to carry around, yet complete enough to have what you are looking for. Additionally, there are language guides, such as verb conjugations. Overall, it's the best Spanish/English dictionary available.