The thing that amazed me the most about TWO YEARS ON THE ALABAMA was that I was unable to put it down. Each chapter gave me a curiosity and eagerness to find out what would happen next, even though I was acquainted with the general facts of the Alabama's depredations. Although Sinclair wrote this book some time after the Civil War the writing style shows no signs of being outdated and therefore the book is very easy to read. On the whole, it read almost like some adventure novel, like Jules Verne's 20,000 leagues under the sea. It is an absolute must for everyone interested in Civil War naval matters, and I think a lot non-Civil War enthusiasts will enjoy it as well.

TWO YEARS ON THE ALABAMA is a contemporary account of the voyages and sailors of the CSS ALABAMA. It was written by Lt. Arthur Sinclair, the fifth officer of the ship. It provides a comprehensive account of the ships encountered and prizes taken by this vessel in the service of the Confederate States. I liked very much the personal details of the lives of the individual officers and men who crewed her. There are over 30 illustrations showing portraits of many of these men and this helped to put a human face on this account. It showed Captain Semmes to be a brilliant naval officer and not at all the pirate the northern press often portrayed him to be.He was an expert in international maritime law and followed it to the letter.On two occasions he released ships taken as prizes when he determined that they had been apprehended just inside the 3 mile limit. There was an excellent account of the battle with Kearsarge and the Alabama's sinking. I was pleasantly surprised to f! ind there was no attempt to rewrite history or refight battles or take the apologist's role by Sinclair. Just simple, factual accounting. I highly recommend this book to the historian with an interest in Civil War naval operations.

The book "Ugh" written by Arthur Yorinks and illustrated by Richard Egielski was one of the funniest books that I have ever read. It kind of reminded me of "Cinderella" but it had its own sense of pre-historic mystic and plot. I truly hoped that the author will be inspired to tell us a little bit more about "Ugh." Perhaps a sequel would be nice . . . Either way this book is great. I never laughed so hard-- its simply hilarious!

"Ugh" be story of Ugh, cave boy with big ideas. But Ugh not happy. Ugh have mean sisters, mean brothers. Ugh do all the work-- painting the cave walls, rubbing sister's feet-- while the world plays. But things change when Ugh invent bicycle. --For the first time since "Louis the Fish" introduced adult-style fictional minimalism, complex psychology, and maybe even reincarnation [as well as thuggish salamis and hamburger patties] to the American picture book audience, Yorinks and Egielski have created an equally charming fictional world, in which a perfectly modulated narrative voice is wed to perfectly articulated illustrations. "Hey, Al!" may be the Caldecott winner from this duo, but "Ugh" and "Louis the Fish" are the true classics.

The book is a great suppliment. It not only gives critical reviews / essays, but it has features such as "1960's Witch hunts" and "1990's Witch hunts." It helps you in undesrstanding the text, however its greatest asset is in helping you in Essay topics and discussion. Great book! Especially if studying Crucible.

mega swanky book yeah

When you think you know everything there is to know about American history in general, and World War I in particular, somebody like Arthur Barbeau and company comes along and educates you as to how ignorant you were. This book is a wonder and, with "The Unwept: Black American Soldiers And The Spanish-American War" by Edward van Zile Scott, provides a remarkable history of Afro-American soldiers in two wars over a period of twenty years.

Barbeau's indignation shines through when he asks the same questions a reader must ask about the injustices Black soldiers were subjected to in America as they prepared to depart for Europe, the indignities they suffered while attempting to fight a war to save democracy once in Europe while denied it in their homeland, and the suffering they experienced in Europe and upon their return to the United States after the war. But Barbeau's indignation is muted, reasonable, logical, and unobtrusive considering the horrors he describes Black troops being subjected to and the slanders against the bravery they displayed in spite of poor equipment, if any;poor training, if any;poor, non-supportive, and/or racist commanders;inadequate support; the institutionalized racism of the military that constantly demeaned them by declaring their inferiority in order to affirm white superiority;and the constant effort to develop Black soldiers as a slave-labor force instead of one prepared for combat. The descriptions of the outrages committed against these soldiers as they prepared to return to America and then after they did arrive "home" speak volumes about the all-important need to support the concept of white supremacy and enforce that of black inferiority in spite of the well-researched and documented facts Barbeu presents as to the fallacy of each.

Barbeau clearly establishes that there was more than one war being waged in Europe regarding the service of Black troops. But his documentation of the service and efforts of those troops in spite of their treatment by their own military can only cause one to marvel at the heights to which racial and national pride urged these brave men forward. The history of Black troops in WWI is known at last thanks to Mr. Barbeau's important contribution to an accurate history of warfare and the people who fight it.

Barbeau,et al, suggest that the "New Negro" of the post-World War I period was a direct outcome of the increased pride and dignity Black soldiers found during their service in Europe and which the French military saluted and honored many times with military awards, even though the US military attempted to discourage that recognition in various ways, including the distribution of a secret communication that attempted to justify discrimination against Afro-Americans by the American military and promote it in the French military and general society.

Read this book. Add it to your library. You'll refer to it many times in the future.

First published in the mid 1970's, this has been the only book on the subject for many years. An excellent treatment of the racial climate in America on the eve of the war, and the subsequent actions taken by the Army with America's entry in 1917. It provides a stark picture of the treatment given to African-Americans as they attempted to serve. It provides the reader with brief histories of the 92nd and 93rd Divisions, the two "Colored" divisions in the AEF and also gives a summation of the treatment given the returning troops. It has good footnotes and sources, and this edition has the added bonus of a forward by Bernard C. Nalty. If any criticism can be leveled at this book it would probably be that new scholarship in this field has uncovered more facts and new interpratations. Anyone interested in the American experience in World War one should read this book. It is written so that it is accessable to the scholar and history buff alike.

A.J. Downing set the style for country suburban Victorian Cottages and gardens along the Hudson River in the 1830's and 1840's. All of his "cottages" featured fireplaces and architecturally important chimneys, usually with decorative chimney tops. Borrowing from painting and fine arts, Downing had definite opinions about color and appropriate use of materials. Provocative and interesting reading this book of cottage and garden plans and sketches is well worth reading. He set a standard for early Victorian architecture. - Jim Buckley

"Victorian Cottage Residences" is a comprehensive book of twenty-something floor plans, mostly of Victorian houses (obviously) both large and small. For those into landscaping as well, this book is doubly wonderful; otherwise the advice on the apple trees is probably better skipped. However, for anyone who's even remotely interested in old homes or houses in general, this is a fantastic book to check out.

Powell's work is a must for any archaeological enthusiest. Written with extreme intelligence and backed with remarkable historical fact, the Villa comes alive within the pages of this brilliant piece of scholarship.

A brilliant and somewhat off-beat look at the decades of classicists who stayed at Sir Arthur Evans' house, Villa Ariadne, in Crete, next to the Bronze Age dig Knossos. Dilys Powell's marriage to a young classical archaeologist brought her in contact with Sir Arthur himself and with the numerous archaeologists in his milieu. The chapter on Sir Arthur's Victorian upbringing is perhaps the most interesting of the book. But the death of Powell's husband and World War II plucked Powell from this magical world. After the war, however, she recreated some of the legendary exploits of the classicists who worked for the Greek resistance. A wonderful book for anyone interested in Greek archaeology or who has ever visited Greece.

The book is well written and informative: I reccomend it! It;s absolutely super!

This is no book for someone not previously familiar with volcano technology. That much aside, the book is an absolute gem for anyone planning a trip to the Cascade Range, California, or other volcanic area of the continental USA or Canada. A must-have for anyone geeked on volcanoes.

Kromer's account of homelessness is so accurate and insightful that the reader is thrown into the despairing life of the narrator with nothing to hold onto. The mysterious and faceless narrator serves as the most useful tool in conveying the hopeless existance of the "hobo." Written using the slang true to his featured characters, Kromer has painted a truly acurate and at times disturbing portrait of life as a railriding begger. Take time to read his biographical information and decide for yourself if this novel is indeed fiction or not. I could say so much more, having studied and re-read the book for years, but space is limited.

Kromer's writing is impressive, in that it fully exposes the atmosphere of a "stiff" struggling to eat, sleep, not get caught and whisked away to jail. The vignettes of Waiting for Nothing are absorbing and keep you feeling cold and waiting for nothing with him. I highly recommend this book as a supplement to the history of the depression. It truly makes it more real.

Suzuki Shosan was a samurai who at midlife became a Zen monk. He evolved an original teaching style imbued with the warrior spirit, emphasizing dynamic activity over quiet contemplation, urging his students to realize enlightenment in the midst of their daily tasks. Today, many who are attracted to Zen but cannot set apart the necessary time from the lives they lead may find appeal in his unorthodox approach.

If you read books on Zen, and would like an unusual take on things, this book may offer it. Suzuki Shosan was a samurai who resigned to study the "Way". For him, mindfulness of death and general preparedness was the main point. I liked the way, in particular, that he cast aside his "enlightenment experiences" as useless. Sometimes, just when he seems not as deep as some other Zen heros, he surprises you. So: a good, somewhat unorthodox and refreshing read.

The full title of the present book is: 'THE WAY AND ITS POWER - A Study of the TAO TE CHING and Its Place in Chinese Thought by ARTHUR WALEY. The book, which was first published in 1934 and has often been reprinted, besides containing a study of the historical and intellectual background, also contains a complete translation of the Tao Te Ching.

Waley, who was one of the great Sinologists of the twentieth century, is perhaps better known to most as a translator of Chinese poetry. His 'Translations from the Chinese,' the book which contains, among other treasures, the marvelous poems of T'ao Ch'ien, Po Chu-I, and Wang Wei, has been reissued many times. And although we have seen other excellent translations of Chinese poetry from writers such as A. C. Graham, Kenneth Rexroth, and Gary Snyder, none of them have had the impact of Waley. Chinese poetry, for most, is and always will mean Arthur Waley. His influence has been overwhelming.

I would attribute his enormous success to two things. In the first place, there is the very special quality of his English, a quality impossible to describe. In the second place, Waley was a master at evoking an atmosphere, a feeling tone, that strikes one as authentically Chinese. So good was he at this that one sometimes gets the feeling, as one does when reading the poems of Emily Dickinson (whose mind had a very Chinese cast), that they must have been Chinese souls who had somehow strayed and ended up reincarnating in Western bodies.

The particular beauty of Waley's style, a style which despite its age still strikes one as modern, will also be found at work in the present book. The book falls into two parts. The first gives us a 100-page Introduction which covers such topics as The Hedonists, Quietism, The Language Crisis, The Realists, The Mystic Basis of Realism, The Tao Te Ching, The Sheng, The Literary Methods of the Book, and the Author. Then follow six Appendices which treat of such matters as Authorship in Early China, Foreign Influence, Taoist Yoga, Text and Commentaries, etc. Then comes the translation itself, after which Waley rounds out the book with some Additional Notes and an Index.

Waley's translations of each Chapter of the Tao Te Ching are followed either by a Paraphrase, a brief Commentary, or, in most cases, simply a few footnotes. The notes are brief, practical, and invariably helpful, and are designed to assist both the general reader and those with access to the Chinese text to arrive at a better understanding of the text. Waley's approach, in other words, has a distinctly old-world and British feel, and is designed to appeal, not to the pedant or technical specialist, but to gentlemen and gentlemen scholars, and ladies also, who are seriously interested in understanding the thought of Lao Tzu. Chapter XLIII gives us a good example of Waley's style and basic procedure. Here it is, slightly modified since it should be set out as verse:

"What is of all things most yielding / Can overwhelm that which is of all things most hard. / Being substanceless it can enter even where there is no space; / That is how I know the value of action that is actionless. / But that there can be teaching without words, / Value in action that is actionless, / Few indeed can understand."

Readers are referred to the book itself for Waley's two brief informative notes on these lines.

Waley, who mastered both Chinese and Japanese, but who wisely refused to visit the East for obvious reasons, was undoubtedly something of a genius, and he has much to teach us all. His edition can be recommended with confidence to anyone who is looking for a study of Ancient Chinese thought along with an uncluttered, authoritative, and readable version of the Tao Te Ching.

This is the definitive book on the Tao Te Ching. It's audience is the well-educated, not necessarily in Chinese thinking, but in general. It's very indepth and not good for a casual read. But if you wish to know about the Tao Te Ching, I mean, REALLY know about the Tao Te Ching, this is the book for you. It's given at the college level, as I read it for a class, and I would say without a doubt the best book I've read on the subject.