5 comments about Hons and Rebels (New York Review Books Classics).

1. A view into the always fascinating Mitford family written by family member, and best-selling author, Jessica Mitford.
   The personal observations about the totally diverse life choices made made by the sisters boggles the mind and confounds the senses.



2. I was looking for a Jessica Mitford autobiography and discovered "Hons & Rebels". The original title of this (1960) book is Daughters & Rebels". Is anything other than the title revised/updated? I'm such a fan of Mitford, I'd rather read her memoirs than Mary S. Lovell's "The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family", which is supposedly more detailed.



3. I absolutely loved this book. I had just finished reading the very long and very good "The Sisters" http://www.amazon.com/Sisters-Saga-Mitford-Family/dp/0393324141 about the Mitfords, and wanted more when I was finished. Jessica ("Decca") was the most fascinating of all -- the one who ran away to Spain and America and became widely known for her politics and her book, "The American Way of Death." (and an Oakland resident, like myself, which is always intriguing!)
   
   "Hons and Rebels" is charming, witty, and in its pages is not only an interesting glimpse of life in upper class England between the wars, but a love story as well, as she retells the story the story of her romance with her first husband, Esmond.
   
   I never heard Mitford speak, but her voice comes through strongly in this book -- witty, determined, able to laugh at herself and family, but serious about her politics and trying to get by as a young idealistic couple in America. (And I imagine a very posh British accent...) What I also liked was how she treated the relationship with her closest sister, Unity, who, as a Nazi sympathizer, was the polar political opposite of Decca. What a family.
   
   Highly, highly recommended.



4. "I'm normal, my wife is normal, but my daughters are each more foolish than the other. What do you say about my daughters? Isn't it very sad?" Mary S Lovell has taken David Mitford's complaint to heart. She has a lot to say about his daughters. But after decades (it seems) of books on those mad, bad and sometimes dangerous-to-know girls, do we want to hear it?
   
   The six Mitford girls pursued lives which are footnotes to 20th-century history: Nancy, the socialist aristocrat, gentle satirist of the society she yet delighted in; Unity, conceived in the Ontario town of Swastika, destined to become Hitler's pet; Diana, whose marriage to Oswald Mosley set her at the fringes of acceptability; Decca, who ended up as a fiery Communist émigré in California; Pam, the country girl who married a scientist and lived quietly in Gloucestershire; and Debo, who declared her intention, and carried out the act, of marrying a duke.
   
   By drawing on new sources, Lovell presents a fresh version of the Mitford story. She fleshes out "Muv" and Farve" - the fictional Uncle Matthew and Aunt Sadie of Nancy's novels - and adds to our understanding of their progeny. David Mitford, "the most handsome man of his generation" according to James Lees-Milne, is as eccentric as his fictional portrait in The Pursuit of Love. He did regard almost all his daughters' suitors as "sewers"; but the word was Tamil, "soor", meaning pig. His wife, Sydney, achieves a Daily Sketch headline, "Peeress Saves Ha'pence", for her economies over home laundry (she used paper napkins).



5. Hons and Rebels, a memoir of the life of the "commie" Mitford sister, Jessica, details the authors life from her childhood in rural England up until the time she lived in Miami in the 1940s. The Mitford clan of six sisters (Nancy wrote The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate) and one brother was an unusual one, prone to playing tricks upon one another and outsiders. Jessica grew up to embrace the ideals of the communist party, while her sister Unity became a Fascist, hobnobbing with Hitler. Jessica then ran away with and married her cousin Edwin Romilly, later moving to the United States.
   
   It's a brilliant memoir, poignant and funny at the same time. Although Jessica's not always the most sympathetic character, she's always witty, touching her story every now and then with a hint of irony. Jessica describes everything in painstaking detail, from the Cotswold countryside to certain conversations she had with various people. The memoir is evocative of the time period in which Jessica lived in.

5 comments about New England (Regional Guide).

1. I like Lonely Planet guides and find them very useful for other places. I also will concede that writing a guide of New England is really two books, a guide to Boston and a guide to everything else. I was psyched when I first got the book, but quickly became disappointed. I live in Boston and thought there were some big omissions locally. I found the guide to everything else to be lacking in major areas. I suppose if one is new to the area or only staying a week, this guide might be useful. For a reference for a New Englander, try something else.



2. Hey, I bought this book and liked it...and I'm a native New Englander. The coverage for Maine is particularly good, or at least I thought so.

   However, I'm posting this not so much to let y'all know that the guide is good, but to say that this book is in it's third edition, published in 2001. All of the reviews here date from 2000 and before. They apply to the second edition of the book, not the third. So take them with a grain of salt, cuz LP changes it's content alot when they update old editions.

   Just my two cents.




3. Hey, I bought this book and liked it...and I'm a native New Englander. The coverage for Maine is particularly good, or at least I thought so.

   However, I'm posting this not so much to let y'all know that the guide is good, but to say that this book is in it's third edition, published in 2001. All of the reviews here date from 2000 and before. They apply to the second edition of the book, not the third. So take them with a grain of salt, cuz LP changes it's content alot when they update old editions.

   Just my two cents.




4. I've always bought Let's Go whenever I travel, but they didn't have a New England book, so I had to get this one. The organization is about the same. It doesn't have as much detail as the Let's Go Boston that I also bought, but I suppose it was because this has more content. The writing is a lot more entertaining that LG though. Also, I found the public transportation info really helpful. I plan on going on a New England road trip someday and I'll definitely bring this book with me.



5. I used LP lots of times before, and some are better than other, some are really really good, but this was the worst one ever: I used it on a road trip from CT to Maine in December 2006: predictable hotels, compact somewhat boring descriptions, and lack of good stories, interesting details, none of the tips you look for as a traveller.. . Could use some passion.

5 comments about Rogue Male (New York Review Books Classics).

1. Although the book is a little old-fashioned, which makes the it hard-going in places, it's well worth persevering. I particularly liked the dark, paranoid atmosphere and the single-mindedness of the gunman, which meant he was willing to live in a hole in the ground rather than give up. The way the enemies are unseen and the lack of any major characters except the narrator give the book a claustrophobic feel which is really memorable.



2. This 1939 suspense thriller was his first big hit. It is written in the form of a journal or confession by an Englishman gentleman sportsman who hunted the most dangerous game. The writer was caught, tortured, then thrown off a cliff to make his death look like an accident. But he survived and escaped from a central European country. However, the agents of this country were put on his trail in England.
   
   The unnamed hero withdraws funds from his account, then disappears into the country to hide in solitude. But in his escape an enemy agent dies, and the English police are on his trail too. The foreign agents can now use police reports to locate this fugitive. The story tells how he escapes, how he hides, and what happens after his is tracked down by a secret agent. The good guy escapes, assumes the identity of this secret agent, and lays a false trail out of the country.
   
   This story records the thoughts of the hero. Dialogue is sparse. Parts of this story explain the operations of a secret agent. The author served as an Intelligence Officer in Rumania and the Middle East during WW II. His "Rogue Justice" is the sequel to this book. If you can accept the premise that his captors wouldn't finish him off in the beginning, the rest of the story follow. It reminds me of "The Great Impersonation" by E. Phillips Oppenheim, and a John Buchan story (hunted in the mountains).



3. Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male is a classic thriller. Household was a British writer, born 1900, who spent some time in the US "just in time for the Depression". He began writing in the US, then returned to England. This is his second novel, published in 1939. He spent the War as an Intelligence Officer in Rumania, then returned to a fairly successful career writing. Rogue Male remains his most famous novel, though Arabesque (made into a movie with Gregory Peck, as I recall) is also well known.
   
   Rogue Male opens with the never named first person protagonist aiming a rifle with a telescopic sight from 550 yards at a certain Head of State. It's never made precisely clear who that is -- a country on one side or the other of Poland, which leaves two pretty evil candidates as of the late 30s. It's pretty likely that Hitler is the real target, but the book takes care never to reveal which of Hitler or Stalin was the target -- on purpose, I think.
   
   The protagonist claims he had no intention of shooting -- he was just "stalking the most dangerous game" for the fun of it, to see if he could be successful. This doesn't play well with the local secret police, who torture him and leave him for dead. But he rather incredibly escapes, and makes his way down a river, soon pursued by his enemies. He stows away on a boat for England, but soon is again pursued. When he is forced to kill one of his pursuers, he becomes wanted for murder by the British police. He flees to the country, planning to literally hole up for the duration. But even his careful plans aren't quite enough -- some bad luck leads to the British police getting a lead, and though he can elude them, the bad guys are able to track him down.
   
   It's pretty good stuff. Exciting, not too ridiculously implausible, and at least somewhat interested in exploring the moral basis of the protagonist's decisions. (Though there is plenty of guff, too, in particular lots of stuff about the wonderful ineffable qualities of the English Upper Class.) (Some of the book is the protagonist's own coming to terms with his real motives and intentions.) It helps of course that the protagonist's target is a real-life maximally evil sort -- even if we continue to disapprove of his assassination attempt, it's hard not to sympathize at some level. The book is also quite dryly funny on occasion. The ending is interesting in retrospect. The protagonist, having again escaped, decides his only recourse is to finish the assassination job. And there the book ends. But it was published in 1939. Then it was a very "open" ending. Now -- any time since 1945 really -- the ending has closed somewhat -- we can only conclude that the protagonist failed in his attempt and was presumable summarily executed. (Though I understand there was eventually a sequel.)



4. If you'd like to disappear, consider reading this book for the least appealing methods at your disposal. It's a tale of a man's endurance beyond the ordinary and it becomes so microscopically focused on his effort to disappear that it effectively loses the broader picture of his rationale for having become a fugitive.
   In spite of its dark nature I never considered giving up on the book because it offers outstanding glimpses into the games our minds often play with us. This isn't the book for everyone, but it's worth the "getaway" for those who enjoy negotiating British personalities and mannerisms.



5. Rogue Male was meant as a thriller. One could put it in the same genre as books by Dan Brown, Michael Crichton, even Elmore Leonard. However, there is one distinguishing feature that separates Rogue Male from the dozens of thrillers filling the aisles of bookstores and that is the quality of writing. None of the above can measure up to RM in terms of language and syntax. The difference in quality is palpable. Basic descriptions and plot devices are figurative. Sandra Stotsky writes about this in her book, Losing Our Language and I am starting to agree with her. Books fifty years ago were better written on average than books today. Books written 100 years ago are an even better deal if one likes quality. Very few present day writers of even serious fiction (I am excluding Cormac McCarthy, J.M. Coetzee and Toni Morrison,) can stand comparison. I am not sure whether many writers write down to their audiences or whether this is what our education system now produces. Rogue Male reminds us that good writing is getting harder and harder to come by.

5 comments about Summerhill School: A New View of Childhood.

1. I read the original "Summerhill" in 1980 when I was in high school. I was completely blown away by the concepts, despite the fact that I grew up in Sudbury, MA, where there was a similar school. I was lucky enough to be exposed to this environment of freedom and flourished in it. I would not have traded it for anything.

   But I must disagree with the characterization of A.S. Neill as a socialist. He may have had socialist tendencies, but he was more a Paul Goodman-style anarchist. Socialism is the regulation and limiting of actions by certain parties; anarchism is the opposite -- the deregulation of everything. And this is the environment that A.S. Neill fostered at Summerhill, to his credit.

   It's really sad that the trend in the United States is towards the very opposite: the complete regulation of children's lives, scheduled down to the minute with safety the being the top priority. This tendency is creating a generation of children who lack spontaneity and creativity.

   We need more free schools like Summerhill.




2. Neill's message is to have faith in the child, respect the child and honor the child's proper developmental timetable. Neill was not an anarchist but a humanist and made a point to not impinge upon the child's natural unfolding by presenting premature responsibilities upon her or him. It is rare to find a school like Summerhill that respects a young person's childhood and innocence, that allows the child to grow and develop at his or her own pace.
   I highly recommend Summerhill as an uplifting and enlightened treatise on children by an educator with experience and humanity that is largely unsurpassed by an educator.



3. In the time when education was to be the agent of change in an unjust society Summerhill was one of many experiments examining more humane ways to "educate" children. It was as idiosyncratic as its creator and much of that comes through in the book. The vision and passion of one man and the teachers and parents who believed in the process is clearly described here.
   Today, when politicians are arguing that teachers need not be prepared to teach and that merely having a bachelor's degree is enough to educate students, Summerhill seems like a distant dream. The focus on understanding children and the ways they learn, grow and develop into confident adults seems so removed from a "No Child Left Behind" standardized test world.
   Nontheless, this book should inspire parents and educators who can see the impact of this school on the children who attended it. The current work on democratic schools (see James Beane and Micheal Apple's work) and critical pedagogy (see Ira Shor's "When Students have power") are movements that take some of the the ideas and momentum of Summerhill's time and move them forward with new knowledge about learning. Long live education for change.



4. Clearly public education cannot hope to replicate Summerhill's system of allowing children to go to class only when they want to. However, the message that could be applied to public education is that children do not need to be pressured into learning. Summerhill shows that, if you show children caring support, they will eventually come around and listen to your advice and respect the caring expectations (as opposed to demanding expectations) you have for their lives.
   
   My vision of public education is one that does not use grades, evaluations and rewards to pressure students into learning. Education should not just be about preparing children to plug the open jobs in the economy; it should enable students to excel in all aspects of life within society: how to stay healthy, how to be a caring person, etc. These issues arise naturally out of studying subjects like biology and literature, but only when the emphasis is taken away from grading and rewards, which often overshadow the true benefits that education has to offer.



5. I have taught high school for eight years and this book is complete anarchist/utopian propaganda...Complete dream land sort of idealism that will create young people that both know nothing and are obsessively self-indulgent. The idea that adults have very little to teach young people and they should only do what they "feel like" is just silly. I see "free and unstructured" classrooms all the time in my teaching experience and I can tell you very little learning takes place. As a matter of fact, the students will tell you too. Common sense dictates this (something most progressives lack because of their preoccupation with a utopian vision). Most students hate such situations and appreciate a teacher who creates a loving (yet structured) environment and teaches them to love a subject they may have never experienced on their own. This structure doesn't have to mean bootcamp discipline, which is the straw man that many radical progressives present it as. How many teachers have inspired a love of art, history, mathematics, music, science, or literature? Countless. How many "imposed" their "curriculum" on the students through their requirements and structure? Most of the best ones for sure. Even great teachers that give students some choices do so in a structure that is geared toward success. The reality is that the best teachers LEAD and inspire students everyday and students thank them for it, albeit sometimes many years later. Summerhill is a radical progressive/anarchist school that plays to the worst of human nature: unchecked self-indulgence. Anyone with a child knows you don't have to teach a child to be selfish, you have to teach them to care and be respectful of others (that includes the idea that you can learn from others too!) The problem with allowing students to make all the choices and adults just having "one of the votes" is that young people OFTEN make the wrong choices. Example: At Summerhill, Neill himself wanted to limit smoking to anyone over 12, yet the students outvoted him and abolished the age limit! Yeah, Summerhill is just what we need for our youth!

5 comments about Austenland: A Novel.

1. I loved this book. It was cute, fun and entertaining - just ended a little quickly for me.



2. This was one of the funnest, frothiest books I've read this year (along with the Shopoholic series). Despite how far-fetched Jane's Adventures in Austenland might seem to the realist, I loved the premise, plot, and fairytale ending.
   
   There are so many witty literary references, that that alone is worth the read. Jane must distinguish between what is real sentiment and what is Stanislavski Method Acting at its finest. Is Martin, the rootbeer-drinking gardener, the real thing? Jane is rather smitten with the 6'5" "servant" after a seemingly unpretentious, reality-based hook-up. Are Mr. Nobley's intense gazes and Austen-lexicon flirtations indicative of a steady paycheck or burgeoning feelings?
   
   Just as Jane thinks she's finally overcome her A&E Pride & Prejudice obsession (believe me, real-life women such as yours truly have a similar, though not quite as intense, Colin Firth-as-Darcy hang-up), she is presented with a pretty close proximation to the Regency-era Fitzwilliam. (It turns out that this Austenland actor was assigned the role of Mr. Darcy/Mr. Nobley because this character was closest to his real personality.) If you can call a good-looking, unemployed British actor in New York City the master of Pemberley, then of all this, Jane might be mistress.
   
   Wonderful, light, feel-good read. I really would like to visit Austenland (it would be like a grown-up woman's version of Disneyland--if it only existed AND was affordable!). Colonel Brandon and Captain Wentworth also have a special place in my heart, and Austenland encounters and intrigues with these leading men would be more than welcome.



3. As a fan of Shannon Hale's writing I was excited and a bit cautious when I found this book. There are a lot of books out there that try and rewrite or continue the story of Darcy & Elizabeth. The only ones I have ever really enjoyed are Pamela Aiden's series -- Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman.
   
   FITZWILLIAM DARCY GENTLEMAN: Complete Trilogy - An Assembly Such As This, Duty And Desire, These Three Remain by Pamela Aidan (Fitzwilliam Darcy Gentleman, Volume 1, 2 and 3)
   
   So, I approach any book that may tread on Jane Austen's original work with caution.
   
   But Shannon Hale's Austenland doesn't attempt to rework Austen. It is the story of a 30 something woman with an obsession for Colin Firth as Darcy who attempts to get over that obsession or find her own Darcy by going on a trip to an exclusive period resort, "Austenland."
   
   As another reviewer comments, it does make you wish you could do the same, only with a lot of family and friends to keep you company, otherwise, you start to realize you might get hopelessly bored and feel overly constrained in that world for three weeks.
   
   Having spent many a night up watching the entire BBC Pride & Prejudice series, I can relate to the story. I found myself not wanting to put the book down and then not wanting to finish too quickly. Now that I know the outcome, I am reading it through again and enjoying it just as much.
   
   Married or single, if your heart beats a little faster when you see Colin Firth coming out of the pond at Pemberly, you will likely find a compatriot in Jane Hayes (Miss Erstwhile) in Austenland.
   
   I now await the movie.



4. Jane is a thirty-three-year-old graphics designer from New York City with an obsession for BBC's Pride & Prejudice. She loves the novel, of course, but she was able to put a face to Mr. Darcy with the very dishy Colin Firth. What red-blooded woman hasn't drooled at the scene of Darcy/Firth at the lake? (I certainly have!) Her great-aunt noticed her obsession and, when she died, she left something for Jane in her will -- an all-expense paid trip to England, to a place where people live as though it were 1816. Jane sees this as the opportunity to get Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice and Mr. Darcy out of her system. Maybe after this trip she'll be able to have a steady relationship! But as Jane takes on her role as a Regency lady, she is met with guests and staff not unlike the characters of P&P, especially the handsome and taciturn Mr. Nobley...
   
   As you can imagine, we get a modern-day retelling of P&P in Austenland. At first, the idea of a twenty-first century career woman vacationing at a Regency-set place and assuming the role of an Austen-like character living her very own P&P story appealed to me. What a refreshing, original idea! Jane does live her own personal Pride & Prejudice. She even encounters a Mr. Wicham during her stay. Unfortunately, the novel, though only 193 pages long, is very dull. If you are familiar with Pride & Prejudice, you will see things coming from a mile away in this book. The characters are wooden and uninteresting, and there is no chemistry between Jane and "Mr. Nobley." Also, the heroine goes into the role of Regency lady with very little effort. The mores and customs of the times are well researched, but Jane has no difficulty adjusting to corsets, heavy underwear and the high-waist gowns that are required for her to wear. The author simply decides to gloss over those details. Also, there's this quote: "Sometimes, she watched Pride and Prejudice. You know, the BBC double DVD version, starring Colin Firth as the delicious Mr. Darcy and that comely, busty English actress as the Elizabeth Bennet we had imagined all along." The "comely, busty English actress," whose name is Jennifer Ehle, is actually American. Anyway, this chick-lit isn't very fun. Helen Fielding did a much better and wittier job with Bridget Jones's Diary. I'd say pass on Austenland, unless you're in the mood for a quick, unremarkable modern take of a beloved classic.



5. This book has its entertaining moments, but it is largely derivative of both the novels of Jane Austen (to be expected given its title and subject matter) but also of BRIDGET JONES DIARY. Since that was already derived from PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, should we have expected this novel to be a takeoff on BRIDGET JONES too?

5 comments about The French Lieutenant's Woman.

1. This book is better identified for what it is not, than for what it is.
   
   It is not a time period romance novel. It is not a mystery. It is not a "woman's novel." It is not a "man's novel." It is altogether different.
   
   Intellectually, it has plenty to offer. It delivers over 60 poems to the reader. It delivers historical analysis of the concepts and collisions of thought emanating in England during the 1860's. And, amid, that colliding backdrop, Fowles tells us, ". . . every Victorian had two minds." "It is a schizophrenia seen at its clearest, its most notorious, in the poets. . ."
   
   Schizophrenia and Fowles are not strangers. Anyone who has read "Magus" will see some similar twists and turns in this novel - just when the protagonist should "get it", he seems to lead his neck out further and get himself into more trouble, into more sexual allure.
   
   But, unlike "Magus", this protagonist - Charles Smithson - doesn't keep going back to the snake pit to be bitten again and again and again.
   
   Like "Magus, the protagonist, a grown and educated man, seems to be a little boy when it comes to his emotions. Like "Magus", the protagonist leaves his betrothed for the "other woman." And, like "Magus", the other woman is not the answer.
   
   Fowles is a great writer. He can fool you and lure you. In this story line, Fowles will lead you in one direction and jive back pages later to catch you off guard - Fowles' schizophrenia-style of writing. This book also includes a few different endings, to reflect indecision by the author on how to end the novel or to deliver the reader to adopt an ending which he or she may choose to be "best" for this book. I enjoyed this unique application of writing, many others have found it to be a weakness.
   
   At times, this book moves slowly, but at the end it speeds up quickly - like a postscript for the last 50-80 pages. All in all, this is a very good novel, which will entertain and teach its readers about England in that Victorian age.



2. All the depth and perspicacity of a Victorian novel, told from a late 20th century perspective. Brilliant.



3. The French Lieutenant's Woman is a delicious grab bag of a novel in which nestles some great magpie type thieving from 19th Century poetry, scientific, and social and literary documents (Marx, Darwin, Hardy, Clough, Tennyson, Arnold and many more) are all draped around the edges of this narrative). It is a real brain feast for anyone interested in high Victorian Britain, and the mores and hypocrisies that lay within (this was a society where the legs of pianos were covered up lest gentlemen become aroused by them, yet had more brothels per head than almost any other society in any part of the world before or since).
   
   Fowles was a great and strange novelist of the curiously fallow middle part of the 20th Century in British letters, the period where Evelyn Waugh was moved to commend the lonely souls who kept the flame of literature burning through the quiet years. A scholar of Victorian England himself, he collected many rare books from the period, and worked diligently at his home in Lyme Regis, away from the bustle of literary salon London to produce big books that challenged novelistic convention. Drawing on French existentialist theory (rather heavy handedly it must be said), he offers a tragic portrayal of two 19th Century lovers: Charles Smithson, a dilletante, rather effete upper class man who struggles with intimations at a freedom that flowered in 1960s England (the time the novel was written) yet for his age were freedoms buried underground. He struggles with the responsibilities of age, and loss of liberty (perennial issues) and encounters the mysterious Sarah Woodruff on a cliff top. Is Sarah a tragic heroine, done a great injustice by the social snobberies of the time, or is she a sly manipulator of Charles's emotions? Fowles plays with these issues, and the narrative in a pyrotechnic, multi-ended conclusion that results in the novel being a curious fusion of 19th Century social realist baggy monster and cunningly playful 20th Century metafiction. Doesn't quite come off, but worth a read.



4. The starting point for each of Fowles' books - The Collector, The Magus and The French Lieutenant's Woman - is the same. The lead female character emotionally dominates the leading male character, who is a hard-headed dude too obtuse to learn from his repeated mistakes. And, as other reviewers have noted, it's difficult to even like many of the players in this book because they're nothing more than low lifes with selfish and malicious intentions. The development of this simple story springs from (and I realize I'm being trite here) an engaged man, Charles, talking with a single woman, Sarah. And without any adult supervision. Imagine that! But I guess that's the way things were in the 1860s. So, if you can put aside the screwed-up attitudes about relationships during the Victorian era and instead appreciate the mind games that the characters play with each other, you'll find this a pretty good, but dreary, read (I thought The Magus was better). However, it's tough to understand that while Fowles writes so well for more than 400 pages, he can't finish his work by providing a more satisfying (not necessarily happy) ending. A disappointing conclusion, to be sure, but so was the ending in The Collector and The Magus.



5. This is a good book for anyone who likes self-referential fiction. It's written like a Victorian novel, but with a fantastic modern narrator who plays around with the story in places and laments how difficult it is to write novels. I recommend it particularly to anyone who has read or studied Victorian fiction.

5 comments about Changes in the Land, Revised Edition: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England.

1. This text was assigned as part of a college history course. As part of my initial reading I found the text to be wordy, indirect and a little overly complicated. However, after reviewing the test for an essay it became far more easily to take meaningful information from. Cronon does an excellent job explaining the transition of Indian culture and society. He also does a very good job of explaining the complex interaction between Indians and European settlers and the American wilderness. In my opinion Cronon focuses on capitalism and the transitions towards capitialism and Indian society. Overall a good history read, very applicable to American history.



2. William Cronon's book was a seminal effort in 1983 that established a new way of thinking about history. It has stood the test of time. The book describes the modes and manner of the ecological impacts that English settlers had on the New England landscape in the colonial era. Some impacts were intentional, others not so much. For example, by the time first permanent settlements were established beginning at Plymouth in 1620, many Indian villages had already been devastated by European diseases (Europeans, especially fishermen had been frequenting the New England fisheries for decades).
   
   The English settlers brought the English methods of farming, new concepts of property, and a market economy that overwhelmed the tribes and transformed the landscape. Forests were cleared, beaver were over-hunted, fences erected, new and domesticated animals and plants were introduced.
   
   An added bonus in this 20th anniversary edition is a delightful afterword by the author reflecting on the book and how it came to be only through repeated serendipity. An added bonus for Wisconsin readers are his reflections on growing up in Madison as the son of a UW history professor and how those experiences shaped his professional life.
   
   Cronon sagely instructs us to asks 'how so Alien a Then could have become so familiar a Now'. Changes in the Land also wrought changes in the way we think.



3. This is not so much a book about New England per se as on how ecology should mould our understanding of history. For too long historians have ignored the ecological/environmental dimension to history, especially colonial history; and Cronon's book is one among a number of path-breaking works that serves to redress the balance.
   
   As Cronon convincingly argues, the strength of ecological analysis in writing history lies in its ability to uncover processes and long-term changes which might otherwise remain invisible. Indeed, ecological change is used throughout the book as a window through which to uncover the complex long-term changes wrought by the arrival of the puritans to New England since the seventeenth century. The full impact of European colonisation cannot be understood apart from the new relationship they established with the New England ecosystem though their commoditisation of resources and their involvement in the international capitalist economy, both of which greatly impacted the land and its previous inhabitants, the Indians. These changes were cultural as much as they were simply environmental or economic: the arrival of the pig, for one, was bound in a cultural relationship to, among other things, the fence, the dandelion, and a very special definition of property.
   
   Of course, the book also offers up fascinating insights into the changing New England landscape from 1600 to 1800. It corrects misconceptions about an unchanging primeval forest before the arrival of the Europeans, or of Indians as passive agents in subsequent changes wrought. It also establishes the origins of the environmental problems in the region such as deforestation, soil erosion, and resultant climate changes - the legacy of which we still live with today.
   
   If this book interests you, so should other landmark studies on ecological or environmental history, such as Alfred Crosby's `Ecological Imperialism' or Donald Worster's `Dust Bowl'.



4. This is a very good piece of work. Cronon manages to keep all possible biases aside. He attributes ecological changes or problems to both natives and colonists. However, he argues that English Colonists were responsible for the greatest amount of damage. It was not a 200 page book on Europe ruined America but a well written analysis on European, in particular England, ways of life and how they dramatically altered the face of America. Natives and Europeans has two completely different ideas of property, life, etc. Without criticizing the English he shows how the English colonists ideas of agriculture changed the face of New England. It was not a thirst for destruction but a way of life or agriculture that Europeans worked with for 2-3000 years. Cronon does a good job showing how English recognized the problem, although little was done to fix it, and attempted to find solutions. It was a well balanced piece of work and narrated from a neutral perspective.



5. William Cronon's book Changes in the Land illuminates the relationship and impact the European colonial settlers had with their environment in New England. The main premise for this book is that different human cultures interact with their environment according to their cultural norms and subsequently have varying effects upon their surrounding environment as a result. Furthermore, Cronon illustrates that these effects created by humans on the environment have consequences which in turn affect the human population and its society. Ultimately he accomplishes the task of showing historically that Americans have the live it up now and pay for it later approach with the environment they live in and unfortunately most Americans still have not learned from previous mistakes with regards to the environment because they still think in terms of wastefulness instead of practical conservation. Even though the concept of Americans being wasteful with their natural resources is common knowledge today, this book truly shows the magnitude of wastefulness European colonial settlers had with their natural resources and the resulting negative consequences for the ecosystem and their own society. Changes in the Land does s superb job of highlighting the fact that this wasteful relationship that Americans have had with their environment has been ongoing since day one they set foot on the North American continent.
   
   William Cronon definitely has the expert knowledge to write a book on the subject of environmental history. In a sense you can say his whole life has involved history and the environment. The afterword in Changes in the Land clearly shows that this book was not only a work that was initially started while he was at Yale as a graduate student, but also was influenced by his own interest of history and the environment even from his childhood. According to Cronon he was inspired as a youngster by his father who was a professor of American history at the University of Wisconsin and by growing up in an area that already had citizens aware and concerned about environmental issues. (pp. 171,173) Furthermore, Cronon's list of academic positions, writings on environmental history, and professional memberships are too numerous to account for in this small book review. Needless to say, after reading his list of lifetime accomplishments in this area on his website it is overwhelmingly clear he wrote this book from an authoritative viewpoint on the subject at hand.
   
   Cronon accomplishes this authoritative viewpoint by juxtaposition of different perspectives and integrating evidence and information from other disciplines. Cronon initially uses the contrast of Henry Thoreau's account of the natural environment in1855 with an over two hundred years earlier account of the environment in New England by an English traveler named William Wood from 1633. Thoreau was obviously disenchanted with changes that had taken place in the environment since William Wood's day which was evident in his comment, "Is it not, a maimed and imperfect nature that I am conversant with?" (p. 4) Famous intellectuals, early naturalists, and traveler's documentation of the landscape were only some sources of evidence. Cronon also used a wide variety of other sources of information such as colonial town records from the courts and legislation, ecological data, and archeological records to build his case although he was wise enough to note that "caution is required in handling all these various forms of evidence (and nonevidence), together they provide a remarkably full portrait of ecological change in colonial New England." (p. 8) In chapters two through five he juxtaposes the European colonists' and Native Indians' society by comparing their relationship with and effect they respectively had on their environment. The general points Cronon makes, hopefully not oversimplifying too much, were firstly, Europeans viewed the natural resources of New England as commodities and the value they attached to them were based on whether or not the were valuable commodities in Europe. Secondly, Indians had a subsistence economy and moved to different locations depending on the season of the year which dictated where adequate food supplies could be found verses the Europeans who had fixed settlements in which they utilized agriculture and husbandry to generate food and eventually a profit for the excess that they cultivated. Thirdly, Indians' perspective of property was they owned the use of the resources on the land and shared the use of the resources with others where as Europeans perspective of owned property was that they owned a specific tract of land identified by clear boundaries in which the land and everything on it was owned by the individual. This comparison served to highlight the impact and consequences on the environment by European colonists due to the way the viewed land and natural resources of New England. The remainder of the book dealt with the consequences of the Europeans interaction with their environment.
   
   Chapter five more or less made the point that due to the impact of diseases on the Indian population and the subsequent restructuring of their social and political system they needed to find a way to survive. One way to survive was to trade with the Europeans and a commodity that was valuable to the Europeans was fur. Indians participated in the decimation of animals that provided these furs and hence they got sucked into the European mercantile trade economy in which eventually they ended up trading their way of life away and the environment suffered for it in the process by losing large populations of animals. Chapters six and seven clearly illustrated the wasteful practices of European colonists with the natural resources such as timber which lead to deforestation, hotter summers, colder winters, and more floods as a consequence. The wasteful shortsighted practices of European colonists were also pervasive by the use of their non-friendly environmental agriculture and husbandry practices which only resulted in a vicious cycle of destruction with the environment they lived in. Cronon used an eyewitness account of the colonial time period to conclude his book. A Swedish traveler Peter Kalm summarized nicely the shortsighted wasteful practices of the Europeans colonists by saying "the grain fields, the meadows, the forests, the cattle, etc. are treated with equal carelessness." (p. 168) Kalm concluded that "This kind of agriculture will do for a time, but it will afterwards have bad consequences, as everyone may clearly see." (p. 169)
   With that being said, Cronon did a wonderful job a presenting his case and providing evidence which made this book a very interesting read. The only downside for a reader (which is no fault of Cronon's because he is only the messenger), was the disappointing feeling and thought that this is typical behavior of humans when interacting with their environment and why don't people in general learn from their past mistakes?

3 comments about Boston (City Guide).

1. I went to Boston in the middle of winter over the long-weekend. Without this book, I would have probably been lost and much colder than I was. This book covered the things I looked at and much more... and has given me the chance to think about going back to Boston in the summer or fall.
   
   The details on the hotels, the areas, the closest metro stations and the Boston in X days features are common to Lonely Planet books and are very useful.



2. Every time I travel, I have purchased Lonely Planet Travel guides. They offer accurate and "real time" facts about the place you're visiting, as well as the most complete information in comparison to other travel guides. The best travel companion.



3. This guide is great as an overview to this fabulous city and accurancy for the more permanent tourist attractions (Freedom Trail, for instance!) is good - but several restaurants have already shut down/changed names/management so be wary of those reviews.

5 comments about National Audubon Society Regional Guide to New England (National Audubon Society Field Guide to New England).

1. After flipping through and enjoying the sharp photography of this book, you will realize that it is also abounding in interesting facts concerning all of New England. Ever wonder what kind of fish you caught last summer or what that caterpillar will change into? Whether you need to know what kind of Oak tree is in your backyard or want to check out the constellations at various seasons - it's in this book! Great (and small enough) to take on hikes to identify animal tracks, flowers and even mushrooms! Although I have a few birding books, I find this one is easiest to use for identification. If you live in NE and want to know what is happening outdoors this book will pique your interest.



2. has what I needed, but isn't very good with the oaks, maple trees, and some fish.



3. After using the Northwest version of this Audubon series, the New England version was attractive as a companion field guide to my bird books. Like the Northwest version, the New England version hasn't disappointed me.



4. This book is amazing!! It is very educational. I like how it has only the plants and animals that are specific to New England. The pictures are clear and the blurbs about the animals and plants have just the right amount of information in them for learning. I also like how it has other aspects like the night sky, geology, climate, ect. and it is well divided into those categories. I use this book to teach kids about what they find out in nature. It is easy for them to use and quickly find what they are looking at. It is also easy for them to read and understand. Some of them just like perusing through it to see what is around them. Once again, an amazing book for yourself, family, or for educational purposes. I wouldn't travel in New England without it.



5. This book is a great companion to take on your day hikes. Very good photo's and descriptions to help identify various flora and fauna.

2 comments about Madeline in London.

1. As with all the Madeline books, this one is simply wonderful and an absolute joy to read! It is an absolutely delightful story, and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves good books.



2. For this fifth book in the Madeline series, Ludwig Bemelmans decides to do several things a bit differently. As always we begin with the old house in Paris that was covered in vines, but this time the twelve little girls in two straight lines each do their own illustration to help set up this tale. As we know, next door in another old house that stood next door lives Pepito, the son of the Spanish Ambassador, who is sent to England. The little girls all cried: "Boo-hoo--We'd like to go to London too." Given that the title of this book is "Madeline in London," that seems likely to happen.
   
   In London, Pepito stops eating and grow fit, and his mama figures out it must be because her son misses Madeline and the girls. So the Spanish Ambassador invites them to the embassy and Miss Clavel and the girls pack and catch the next jet. There they find a birthday present for Pepito, and then take a tour of London town, from Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace to Drury Lane, London Bridge, and the White Tower. In London there is no need for Miss Clavel to wake up in the middle of the night or run fast and faster to some new disaster. That is because this time the disaster has to do with Pepito's present and Miss Clavel is not responsible for it (that is, until the end of the story).
   
   Young readers who liked "Madeline's Rescue" because of Miss Genevieve will be inclined to like "Madeline in London" because it also deals with pets. I was a bit disappointed that there are not as many wonderful full-color illustrations of the sights of London as we usually find in the Madeline stories set in Paris. Those illustrations are often the best part of Bemelmans' stories, as he goes beyond the simple yellow painted pages to more complex pictures. "Madeline in London" was originally published in 1961 and it turns out to be the last time Bemelmans did his signature yellow pages, as the sixth and final story, "Madeline's Christmas," will be entirely in color.