No comments about The Long Argument: English Puritanism and the Shaping of New England Culture, 1570-1700 (Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture).

1 comments about The Water Carrier.

1. Steve Straight is a professor of English and director of the poetry program at Manchester Community College in Connecticut. The Water Carrier showcases his remarkable talents as a poet in his own right and will well serve to introduce an appreciative readership to a body of work that is hallmarked with wit, observation, and humor. What Teachers Dream: It is an old classroom, with a smoky transom/tilted above the door, high walls stained brown/and two-person wood tables bolted to the floor./Of course he has never taught physics before,/nor taken it, but he can't remember that,/can only feel the swollen sense of being unprepared.//What is so sweet, though, is the way the students/hunch forward expectantly in their seats,/mechanical pencils in their hands like furled umbrellas/on the shore of knowledge, poised to absorb the nonsense/scrawled on the board. by the way the chalk dust/feels on his fingers, and by the way the 2's are formed/in the equation moored to the diagram, he can tell,/too, that despite the depth of this confusion/he is prepared to try.

No comments about American Map Greater Boston, Massachusetts (American Map).

No comments about New England's Prospect.

1 comments about Pastkeepers in a Small Place: Five Centuries in Deerfield, Massachusetts.

1. The author has done something quit different in regards to a social history book.He gives a smooth chronological history of Deerfield through stories,but adds in the five why's of why did people pass down,save and write about their history.Deerfield's history was not really that exciting except for a few brief battles during ,King Philips War and Queen Annes War,but that didn't stop the residents from telling and re-telling their stories.I've always been a fan of Deerfield, both visiting and reading about the tales,this book just makes the place a little more special. Again, well worth the price of admission.

5 comments about A Bitter Brew: Faith, Power, and Poison in a Small New England Town.

1. This book offers a peek inside small minds in a small church, and while it is true crime, it's also a poignant illustration of how gossip can take over and destroy a community. There was no trial, and the police investigation was bungled, but this author got it right, and the authorities finally admitted she got it right--a year after the book came out. These people all but burned their own "suspect" at the stake.



2. I live in Caribou and know many of the people the author references in this book. This book is more fiction than fact. The majority of her information came from one source in New Sweden when the most of the residents refused to participate. She continually added additional stories and crimes in the area to embellish her story and lengthen her book. It would have been terribly short with the few facts she had. Much of the information she includes is not directly related to the poisoning. Her portrayal of the people of Northern Maine is insulting. I am a southern girl, a Maine implant, so to speak. I adore the people in this area. They are smart, resourceful, faithful, and loyal. Metropolitan areas have the same types of disputes on their street corners. Does it make it more amazing that it happened in such a small town. The people of New Sweden have tried to reconcile and move on with their lives. Most of them do not approve of the information in this book. They feel it is simply "trash". I agree. If you want the real facts, you'll get more on the internet than inside these gossip pages.



3. Christine Ellen Young's "A Bitter Brew" is a highly readable first book. The story is interesting and the analysis of the town's culture and residents is well done. This book is better than probably 75% of the true crime written.
   I have two problems with the way the material was presented however. Ms. Young advises us in the forward that she has used aliases for some of the book's characters, and that some of the police dialog, I would presume particularly in the squad room scenes, is made up. I would prefer that when an author uses aliases that she let the reader know which of the names are aliases the first time they are used. This is relatively minor. The fabricated cop talk is very poorly done, to the point that it becomes a laughable and unattractive stereotype. This is unfortunate because the rest of the book is a good piece of work.
   
   Before I finish I would like to briefly address the review of this book by "Tundra Vision" who, along with far too many others, has been uncritically drinking the Ann Rule Kool-Aid. Tundra downgrades Ms. Young for not being Ann Rule. Ann Rule has been a mediocre hack for some years now (see the execrable "Green River, Running Red") and hasn't done anything as good as "A Bitter Brew" in years.



4. THIS BOOK IS BORING AND A COMPLETE WASTE OF MY TIME. CHURCH GOSSIP TAKEN TO THE NTH DEGREE, AND NO REAL ANSWERS - JUST CLOSED MINDED SWEDISH LUTHERAN VILLAGERS - HOW INTERESTING.



5. I didn't find much point to this book. I found the bickering, gossip and ill feelings out of place for a group that is supposed to be worshipping God and having goodwill toward others - especially their own fellow congregants.

1 comments about El estanque del mirlo/the Witch of Blackbird Pond.

1. I don't read Spanish well but I have a student who would love this book and she reads better in Spanish than English. I'm glad that they have this book available in a language she reads well.

4 comments about Lost Railroads of New England (2nd Edition)(New England Rail Heritage Series) (New England Rail Heritage ; No 1).

1. This very informative book opens a door to the past, and thoroughly explains about the rise and fall of New England's once massive railrod system. Ronald Dale Carr also includes detailed summaries of each separate railraod abandonment as well as providing detailed maps showing were each railraod went as well as all the stops along the routes



2. I was a bit skeptical when I got the book due to its price. I was pleasantly surprised with the level of detail that went into the book. I remember watching the trains cross a grade near my house when I was a kid, and I always wondered how long it had been there, whose it was, and what happened to it. This book was able to answer those questions for me. I also gave me additional resources to check out.



3. An excellent resource but brief. The maps are what make the book worthwhile. The written history is nice but at only 30-odd pages it doesn't cover much. The maps come with numbers by each rail right-of-way that corresponds with a brief description of the line. I like the book and will keep it around but it left me wishing for a lot more.



4. This is quite an interesting book. There are/were more railroads than you could guess. Not only are the abandoned routes on the map but those that still are active.

No comments about Under New England: The Story of New England's Rocks and Fossils.

3 comments about Conquering the American Wilderness: The Triumph of European Warfare in the Colonial Northeast.

1. We've become so accustomed to hearing about the "American Way of
   War" that we rarely bother to reexamine it. In Conquering the American Wilderness, Chet challenges the assumption that English settlers learned from Native Americans how to fight as guerillas. He demonstrates that English fighting methods remained the same throughout the colonial period, and that the failure of colonial forces to do the job well led to greater and greater reliance on British Redcoats.

   The key to the poor performance of provincials and to the overwhelming success of British regulars (culminating with the capture of Canada during the French and Indian War) was professionalism of officers, NCOs, and enlisted men.

   What's interesting about this book is that it explains the wisdom and demonstrates the effectiveness of Europe's linear tactics (which are so often portrayed as senseless ritual). Chet then illustrates why large heavy formations, drawn in lines of battle, were so effective against French and Indian guerillas.

   Conquering the American Wilderness also explains the origin of the myth of Americanization/Indianization of European warfare in the colonies, but because the book ends with the first battle of the American Revolution, it doesn't deal with the way the retelling of American victory magnified and enshrined the myth of the American guerilla tradition ("the American Way of War").




2. A small book that packs a punch. In his "Preface", Chet explains that he began writing this book in an effort to illustrate how Englishmen were militarily transformed into Americans; how they gradually gave up their European defensive tactics and instead adopted Indian offensive tactics. As with most myths, the deeper you dig, the less you find. The book Chet wound up writing demonstrates the exact opposite of what he originally thought he'd find. It shows how and why European tactics WORKED in North America, despite the terrain and the
   Indians' guerilla tactics.

   Although the book deals with the colonial period only and does not analyze the American Revolutionary War, Chet's argument fits in with what we know about George Washington's management of his army during the war.

   The sections about Benjamin Church, Rogers' Rangers, and British light infantry tactics are particularly interesting.

   The endnotes contain interesting and funny incidents that really

   enhance the impact of the text.




3. An interesting book that manages in 200 short pages to effectively challenge the tradition (or orthodoxy) of American Exceptionalism and "Americanization" through the lens of American military history.

   The narration of the sometimes-horrifying and sometimes-comical
   encounters between English, Indian, French and British military forces indicates not only that American settlers retained their Old-World way of war (rather than creating a unique American way of war), but also that the 'old ways' triumphed in the New World.

   This book serves to further demonstrate that the Atlantic Ocean was not a barrier that culturally and politically separated the colonies from England. Instead, it was a bridge that, as Chet states, allowed the "transportation of English culture --- military culture --- to the frontier of European civilization." "When examined within the context
   of imperial history, the story of warfare, like the story of politics and culture in colonial America, reads as a process by which the colonies were drawn toward England's cultural and administrative sphere of influence, rather than attempted to liberate themselves from it."