At this time when large universities such as Harvard accept money from bin Laden, the need for smaller "Utopian Colleges" becomes evident. Not only are the missions of these colleges more ethical, but their history of progressive education and its values give hope to American higher education. This book examines these colleges that create independant thinkers rather than the corporate robots of the major U.S. universities.

Dr. Cappel's book provides a comprehensive glimpse into the higher education system at work in America today. She clearly explains what her criteria for a "utopian" environment are, and then goes on to describe how each of the chosen colleges reflects these. Her mode of investigation is fascinating, and it is apparent that she made the most of her experiences at all of the institutions she visited. This book proves that, even among the widespread mediocrity that has become evident in American colleges and universities today, there are a few schools out there that still insist on following a dream and a vision, and creating the perfect learning environment that provides students with the finest education possible.

Dr. Cappel's book addresses both the history of utopian education and its present incarnation in Utopian Colleges. Speaking from personal experience, I know many of the stresses that provide for both compromise and solidarity within a utopian educational community do exist and have been greatly affected by their manifestations. The underlying work ethic the author shows to be true in the diverse selection of educational institutions featured in Utopian Colleges is a very important aspect of education that is generally ignored in mainstream education. Utopian Colleges shows that the utopian ideal in American post-secondary education was not a counter-culture product of the 1960's, but a long-held tenet which has sought to nurture the creative and intuitive genius to be found within each willing student. The extensive background information provided as a prelude to the present-day and historical outlines of several utopian colleges, along with the discussion of the nature of "utopia" itself are of great enough value alone to offset the cost of this book. This is a great text with which to begin a critique of the American educational system.

A friend suggested this book to me, and I couldn't put it down.
A new way of blending fact and fiction that works. Of course, the fictional love story made the truth of Hemingway and his young girlfriend even sadder.

This book was recommended to me by a friend, who just attended a Michigan Hemingway conference in Petoskey, MI. Hemingway scholars from as far away as Japan were there. My friend bought a copy of "Sweetgrass and Smoke" and encouraged me to read this book.
I couldn't put it down! It reads like a mystery.

Sweetgrass and Smoke was how Ernest Hemingway descibed the smell of the shacks of the American Indians near his family cottage at Walloon Lake, Michigan. His girlfriend lived there. At seventeen he fell in love with Trudy Bolton, a half-breed neighbor who was fifteen. He wrote about her in his Nick Adams stories. She commited suicide at sixteen several months pregnant. This book is about their relationship and many other things.
A good read, if you like Hemingway and Native Americans.

Hemingway in Michigan gave me the background about Nick Adam's and the early years that made me reread Hemingway from a different point of view.
If anyone is interested in Hemingway, the emerging writer, this is the book to read. Not only is it a well documented biography, but it places Hemingway in the region of northern Michigan he loved and wrote about.

This biography captures the "real Ernest Hemingway" when he lived in northern Michigan. Since I visited Petoskey, Michigan, I know the places that the author writes about. I reread Hemingway's short stories about Nick Adams and found out how close to the truth he was. When you take this book, Hemingway in Michigan, and go to the sites described in it, you feel as as if you have lived the fiction of the early Ernest Hemingway.