No comments about Yankee Wisdom 2009 Wall Calendar.

No comments about Life in a Whaling Town (Picture the Past).

2 comments about Whale Port: Whale Port.

1. The son-father team of Mark and Gerald Foster have collaborated to produce an eye-pleasing book that not only offers a creative approach toward explaining the history of New England whaling over time, but is a crash course in all the terminology and processes related to the whaling industry, maritime trades that developed because of it, and other aspects of Colonial life.
   I recommend this book for children AND adults who want to use it to prepare for, or supplement, a visit to any whaling point of interest, such as the New Bedford Whaling museum in Massachusetts, Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut, a whale watch, or any other whale-related tourist spot worldwide.
   This book also provides a starting point for those who want to learn to appreciate whales, understand how human action profoundly affects their survival on this planet, and gain historical knowledge from which to decide how to act today to protect these important and endangered mammals.
   The exquisitely detailed, labeled illustrations by Gerald Foster are educational in and of themselves, but together with Mark's comprehensive historical instruction, this book becomes a gem. Well done!



2. Whale Port is a treat for anyone, young or old, interested in whaling and the role it played in American history. Through the fictional village of Tuckanucket, Mark and Gerald Foster take you on a wonderful, illustrated tour of the growing pains, and the triumphs and tragedies of a whaling town as it tries to maneuver through the powerful tides and currents of history, while remaining literally and figuratively afloat. The drawings are excellent, the story is dramatic and compelling, and the added background information at the bottom of each page makes the book that much richer. My eight year old son loves the book, and so do I. I highly recommend Whale Port to anyone who is fascinated by America's whaling heritage -- it is particularly appropriate for 8 to 14 year olds.

1 comments about Maine's Visible Black History: The First Chronicle of Its People.

1. Every state should strive to make such an effort to capure its African American history and Price and Talbot did a tremendous job.

No comments about Annapolis: A Walk Through History.

3 comments about The Transcendentalists: An Anthology.

1. Perry Miller's Transcendentalists: An Anthology is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the American Transcendentalist movement, its roots, and its growth.

   Essays by Emerson, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and their influential contemporaries are included. Among them are William Ellery Channing, Orestes A. Brownson, Elizabeth Palmer Peadbody, Amos Bronson Alcott, Christopher Pearse Cranch, Theodore Parker, Jones Very, Ellen Sturgis Hooper, Caroline Sturgis Tappan, and Sophia Dana Ripley.

   This book is a classic.




2. I have enjoyed reading Emerson and Thoreau, and so I wanted to gain a deeper insight into their milieu. I had hoped that this book would provide a general overview of transcendentalism while also providing a substantial sampling of the writing of the men and women who shaped (and were shaped by) it. But I have been very disappointed. First, the author fails to provide any general summary of transcendentalism. Worse, he writes as though the reader were already familiar with this topic...which the book purports to introduce and explain! A strange and lethal flaw. Second, the book is a mere anthology of snippets...a few pages from one author, a paragraph or two from another. It is the epitome of superficiality, somewhat like "sampling the cuisine of Europe" by perusing a summary of 25 menus from your arm chair. Not very tasty! None of the selections is long enough to give the reader any real insight into the writers' points of view. On balance, this book is the intellectual equivalent of "Around The World in 15 Microseconds"...and its superficiality is aggravated by the author's failure to provide any meaningful context for the "sights" past which we zoom. There must be something better than this!



3. The author stated that the works of Emerson and Thoreau were omitted due to limitations of space. However since Emerson is a central character who is referred to frequently, the reader needs some support. I recommend reading the Emerson biography, Robert Richardson's "The Mind on Fire" either before or in conjunction with Miller's book. This book, like Miller's, does a great job of telling the Transcendentalist story . Together, a clear picture emerges. Having Wikipedia nearby is also very helpful as there are extensive references to authors and philisophical terminology. With Wikipedia you will probably have no trouble and will stay engaged regardless of your background.

No comments about A New-England Tale (Penguin Classics).

No comments about Southern New Hampshire Trail Map: Mount Monadnock and Cardigan.

No comments about Representing Righteous Heathens in Late Medieval England (The New Middle Ages).

No comments about King Henry V (The New Cambridge Shakespeare).