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First, the selections included excerpts of almost everything I'd ever heard of: Shang Oracle Bones, the Analects of Confucius and the Confucian classics including the I Ching; Mozi; the Tao Te Ching; Zhuangzi (who famously dreamed that he was a butterfly); Mencius; Xunzi; the Zuozhuan; Sun Tzu's art of war; all kinds of stuff about Chinese schools of Buddhism including the Lotus Sutra and the Flower Garden Sutra and the history of Guanyin and Wutai Shan; Li Po (Li Bo) and Tu Fu (Du Fu); and neo-Confucianism (which was so influential in Korea). In short, this is really, practically the "Eatern Canon" and the selections are deserving of such a label. I was in turns morally and intellectually challenged, uplifted, informed and surprised; but rarely bored and never disappointed.
Second, the introductory essays were exactly what I wanted to know: who might have written it, and when, and who read, and what it meant to them. For all that information, they were still brief and the bibliography was sufficient to help me chase the points that left me curious. An important thing these essays did was to cover the political, historical and social backgrounds (and foregrounds) of the texts, so I learned about Chinese history as well as literature and religion. If that is what you want to do, this book will serve you well.
The binding is excellent, and while the price might look steep I have to say it's a bargain considering what you get.
I didn't read Volume Two, and so I don't know if it is as good. It is certainly a lot smaller!
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You go for professional help and the nice shrink says "Here, take these pills for depression or these tranquillizers." And, sure enough, two weeks later you feel great and believe the shrink is a miracle worker. But guess what--it's just your menstural cycle. You're going to be screaming at your kids and fighting with your husband all over again in a few days if you don't read this book and find out what you really need to do is to get on top of your hormones. The way it's explained here, it's not that hard. You need to watch your diet, especially caffeine, alcohol and sugars (the things we automatically turn to!); you need to see a doctor for natural (not synthetic)hormone replacements in some cases; but most of all you need to understand that while you are trying to get on with your life, your body has its own agenda. This book is packed with useful information and is upbeat and easy to read. In short, it's a lifesaver, whether you are a teenager just starting your menstrual cycle or a middle-aged lady still going through the motions.
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Mitchell has done a top notch job in recounting the life and times of W.A.C., using the medium of a biography to relate the growth and development of a region. This is even more remarkable given the disfavour that biographies of white, male politicians have fallen into in the past few decades as a historical means of recounting the past.
Mitchell relies heavily on personal interviews he conducted with Bennett in the last years of his life, along with those of the many individuals involved with this first Socred regime. The only fault I can personally site with this book is that it might be too sympathetic, a point Mitchell even alludes too!
There is not much that this book misses out on. It starts literally at the beginning with W.A.C.'s start in New Brunswick, the move to Alberta and the starting of the first hradware strore, and then the final move to the Okanagan where Bennett was to become involved in politics, leading a rather obscure existence (with a few failures along the way) before he finally bolted from the coalition government to start Social Credit in the early 1950s - a move which was decidely different than the grassroots movement of Social Credit in Alberta. Social Credit in B.C. would always be a top-down movement.
Regardless, this is an excellent piece of work and does much to shed some light on the political history of a province whose historiography has been woefully inadaquete in this area.
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Joseph Garland reveals this history through the tale of one man--Giant Jim Pattillo, probably the most colorful and independent captain ever to command a Gloucester fishing vessel. A Novie who became a "whitewashed Yankee" when he became a U.S. citizen, Pattillo sailed between Georges Bank, Nova Scotia, and Cape Ann, Massachusetts, during the glory years of 1820 - 1870. Huge in size, immensely strong, and willing to take on anyone when he'd had enough to drink, Pattillo was a brawler who feared nothing and no one, a man who was willing to break the rules and even smuggle when it suited his purpose. Defying storms and all manner of danger, he also defied the restrictions the Crown placed on fishing around Nova Scotia--along with all the Crown's officers and enforcers.
Owner and master of his first fishing vessel in 1820, when he was just fourteen, Pattillo later fished for halibut, mackerel, herring, and cod in pinkeys, smacks, barks, sharpshooters, and schooners, all sailing vessels operating without any supplementary power. Navigation was challenging, to say the least, especially during ferocious storms at night, and the long list of names on the Gloucester memorial attests to the difficulty of keeping these vessels intact during the terrible Atlantic winters. Communication was almost non-existent, and on one occasion, when Pattillo and his crew returned to Gloucester in May, the town was stunned--it had already mourned their deaths, thinking they, like dozens of others, had perished in February.
Garland's impeccably researched tale is a can't-put-it-downer which deserves much more publicity! It's not an exaggeration to say that the insights you gain here about fishing and fishermen will forever change your perceptions of this heroic profession. Through Jim Pattillo, whose career spanned fifty tumultuous years, Garland provides a comprehensive historical account of the Gloucester - Nova Scotia fishing fleet, giving a context to more modern stories, such as The Perfect Storm, often thought to be unique. As a result, these modern accounts may now rightly assume their place as part of Gloucester's centuries-old, seafaring history, their crews members of the more than 5300-man fraternity of those "who go down to the sea in ships."