When Stephen Vincent Benet finished John Brown's Body in 1928 and the critics awaited its issue, the South was most anxious and skeptical that they would be portrayed honestly. They were and Stephen Benet's masterpiece is America's greatest epic poem and a most unappreciated work of literature. But, I love it and always will love it, because it makes those historic figures of so long ago - come alive. Out of the mist, they ride. Come traveler, pick it up, open its pages and from fish hook Gettysburg to the end, watch them ride and try to understand over all the years what was happening and why they were fighting. It was not all about Slavery!

During the Pax Romana the emperor Augustus commissioned Vergil to write an epic history of the Romans. The result, of course, was The Aeneid, a stunning blend of epic poetry and historical fiction that some would argue has yet to be topped. John Brown's Body is the closest thing we have to an epic poem "about" America. And while it takes place during the civil war and makes no claim to be an authoritative history, the book is no less impressive as a literary feat. No book in the history of this country has so artfully depicted our nation's great schism.

Written in the 20s, John Brown's Body redefines the word ananchronism. Its contemporaries are The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises, and Their Eyes Were Watching God. Professors widely praise these modern works for their groundbreaking aesthetics, and not without justification. However, it's hard to imagine a more daring or daunting task than the writing of John Brown's Body. Never mind the fact that he pulled it off marvelously. Stephen Vincent Benet remains the only writer to have even _attempted_ to write an American epic poem. Stephen Vincent Benet deserves high scores both for degree of difficulty and final product. Yet conventional education regarding 20th century American books never seems to give him these high marks.

Why Benet and his book don't get the recognition they merit is a terrific question. Is his book canonically superior to Gatsby and Their Eyes? No. And on some level, it's difficult to see what someone living in Taiwan could glean from this document of American struggle and triumph. To wit, the book can also be criticized for being slightly skewed toward a Yankee perspective. But as a whole, the book is outright better than a lot of works revered as American classics.

What does better mean? What it should mean. Simply a more impressive work of art. More entertaining. More provactive. More fun to read. More intellectual depth, conveyed subtly and beautifully, embedded skillfully but not invisibly in an absorbing tale. On these counts, John Brown's Body is vastly superior to classics like The Sun Also Rises; The USA series of John Dos Passos; Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis; and certainly Hawthorne's later novels. Yet John Brown's Body continues to get short shrift, to the point where it's well nigh unfindable in many a book store. One can only hope that the critics and canon-makers of later generations restore the book to its proper place, high atop our shining history of American letters.

This book won the Pulitzer Prize in the '40's. It covers the Civil War principally from the perspectives of a young, small town Connecticutt boy and the heir to a Geogia plantation. It begins with a gripping view of events on a slave ship and ends with two crippled young men and the women they love, beginning to rebuild ther lives. Part poetry, part prose, it all sings.

A great book for anyone in any business. I find myself reflecting back to it often to stimulate thinking. It is an after action review of success and failure in past and current businesses. An excellant source for insight into intelligent business thinking.

A must read book if you "know" your company is in great shape.

I give this book 10 stars.

The book includes three common metaphors that rule, unconciously, the way educators think and act in schools. Understanding these three metaphors is a necessary step towards changing the education system.

In clear, direct language, Learning All the Time describes the crucial difference between learning (making sense of the world)and education (being forced to digest and regurgitate what someone else dictates). Without vitriol, John Holt exposes how our children are harmed more than helped by institutional schools. He shows how all children are natural and gifted learners and how educational systems frustrate and fracture their innate curiosity about the world. His insights, ideas, and experiences show how to support children as they teach themselves. I wish I'd had this book when my child was born.

Unschooling cannot be attained through recipes of course, since every child and family is different. But Holt thoughtfully and sensitively manages to share his devotions and insights about learning, children and life in general so clearly that even the most hesitant parent can gain confidence in hir and hir child's ability to unschool.

The book is a collection of essays about many facets of learning and educational subjects (the three R's, science, music). Holt's profound observations help not only to understand how children tackle these subjects but also to gain a better understanding of these subjects ourselves.

Highly recommended for anyone involved in education.

This book covers all of WWII. It includes text, pictures, and great looking maps. This book has the best color maps of any WWII atlas I own (The Historical atlas of WWII, The Cassell Atlas of the second world war, & West Point atlas for the second world war Europe & the Mediterranean)

Gives detailed maps of every battle of World War II. Also supplies facts about the time between the World Wars and the postwar era. Highly recommended.

Mr. Holt has done a wonderful job in describing some of the more esoteric, and personal, aspects of bird hunting. He also has done a good job of giving the reader an understanding of the land and people of Montana. I read this book a few years ago, and will be sending it to more bird-hunting friends this Christmas Whether you are a bird hunter, an admirer of Montana, or a Gonzo outdoorsman, you will enjoy this book.

I bought this book 4 years ago when I found out I was moving from VA to Colorado. The author has a wonderful flair for description that rings true to me as a lifelong bird hunter. Unfortunately, the wonderful hunting he describes doesn't happen in Colorado, so it is one of those great books about dream hunts outside my local stomping grounds.

Bergey's Manual of Systematic Bacteriology is a four-volume set covering virtually every known species of bacterium; articles on each species and extensive articles on higher taxa describe a great deal of value to the undergraduate microbiology student or teacher, often including hard to find information about culture methods and ecological roles. The high cost and heavy format of the four large hardbound volumes make them unsuitable for use in the laboratory, however. Bergey's Manual of Determinative Bacteriology is a lower-cost, paperback companion volume containing very brief genus descriptions but extensive tables of biochemical and growth charateristics necessary for the laboratory identification of bacteria. Student labs should include these paperback volumes near every workstation; once students have identified their bacteria, a trip to a departmental library or reading room to learn more about the organism from the four-volume set is in order. Together, these volumes are indispensible for any well-equipped microbiology program.

This edition of the classic 1662 Prayerbook is beautifully illustrated, giving it the perfect feel for mediation and contemplation. It includes the entire BCP with the exception of the Psalter, the Ordinal, the prayers on the anniversary of the Sovereign's accession, and the lectionary for the daily office. With these minor deficiencies noted, you should not be disappointed. The text is beautiful and immortal, and a treasure trove of inspiration. If you don't want it for mediation, then it is worth it to own one of the great classics of all time.

For those of u who love fishing, and even if u just like a good story, this is a great book for you. It's funny, although in a way not appropriate for young kids. I've borrowed this book like four to five times from the library, and now I think I'm gonna buy it at Amazon.

This book is so true. If you're looking for guidance on how to begin to teach your children this is the place to start. This will put you on the right track!!!!

Anyone who works with children or is interested in education and psychology will enjoy John's interesting ideas. Most of this book is anecdotes about John's experience with different young children and his thoughts about how children learn in different areas that are based on those experiences.

How Children Learn
By John Holt

5 stars

Holt didn't have children of his own, and his first opinions of children and learning came from being a schoolteacher in an elite private school, where he taught math to 5th graders. He was exposed to younger children and babies who were friends and relatives, and began forming different opinions about learning, which he shares in this book. Holt is fascinated by the notion that children accomplish so much before formal schooling begins and realizes that the way school is set up goes directly in opposition to what is natural and has worked for these children up to the point they are sent off to school.

The beginning of the book covers the age ranges from birth up through age 3 to 5, that is, before children go to school. Holt talks about a certain type of important learning that takes place up until the time a child enrolls in school at which point the experience of schooling changes their personality. The book starts off with how children succeed in learning many important things and huge feats such as speaking and with proper grammar and pronunciation and walking without formal schooling and that children accomplish much learning without an adult being the facilitator of it. In general the style of writing is that Holt describes a situation and then gives his opinions of the learning experience. Sometimes Holt does little experiments such as introducing a toy or a non-toy (such as a typewriter) to young children to see how they react to it and what they do with it. Holt observes with delight and amazement, these young children who are friends and relatives (they are not his students or participants in a research projects). It is clear that Holt enjoys these young children and he respects them and relishes the time he spends with them.

This revised edition makes clear which text is original then what was added-which is new perspective as he had spent more time around children and his theories matured and changed a bit. Seeing the two perspectives clearly was very interesting and educational.

Regarding the discussions about babies and toddlers there are good observations here and I appreciate them. As a stay at home parent, I have already witnessed much of this (and more) and for some of the chapters I felt I wasn't learning anything I hadn't already witnessed with my own two eyes. However, readers who are childless will definitely learn much about how learning happens from infancy and up. I highly recommend that anyone interested in going into the profession of teaching read this book, or any current teacher who is childless. Holt gives the children much-deserved respect for their innate ability to learn and figure out the world around them.

Later chapters get more analytical as Holt integrates his own observation of schooled children (about grade 5 and below) and compares and contrasts with other educators, scientists and child psychologists. (It doesn't seem to me that Holt is analyzing preteens or teenagers.) Here is where Holt exercises his ability to write clearly and concisely drive home his point in a convincing manner.

Again and again Holt shows how a child to is forced to "learn" things (such as in public and most private schools) is actually having their personality changed in the process. The act of being forced to do things and to prove oneself over and over via testing and not being trusted by adults changes their personality. Holt feels the schooling procedures have negative consequences on all children; albeit some children are more negatively affected than others. The child can develop anxiety, mistrust, and fear of all adults not to mention self-esteem problems or just killing their curiosity or interest in learning.

Great quotes from other books on education and learning are included here with Holt's reactions. A short list of books on school reform is included. The summary alone is almost worth the price of the book.

For more specific information about what goes on in school and how children learn to play the school game and how forced teaching is not always effective, read Holt's "How Children Fail".

This would make a great gift for expectant parents, I feel it would point out to them that babies deserve a lot of respect for being able to figure out the world around them. This notion of being in awe of and respectful of children starting at birth is seldom written about...so many of us were under the misguided notion that an adult must be the one to force learning onto babies and children (me included until I birthed my babies and saw firsthand how smart they are).

Book covered all of fundamentals of Pennsylvania fly fishing.Good for novices and out of town people. Gives needed information regarding lodging and services. The book does fall short in the amount of streams visited. Many wild trout and stocked streams went unmentioned. This was a big miss.

"Flyfisher's Guide to Pennsylvania provides the indepth information I'll need to get started on more coldwater, warmwater and steelhead streams, rivers and lakes than I'll probably be able to get to over the next 10 years; more than 150 waters across the state."

" Flyfisher's Guide to Pennsylvania will put you on good fishing, and get you started with the right flies and tactics. In fact, this is the only fishing guide book I have read that is so complete yet is such entertaining reading."