This is a wonderful book that examines a father and son relationship in a Midwestern farming community. The struggles between generations and the authors own internal conflicts brought me to tears. The author captures the German-Lutheran morality and displays it affectionately. I loved this book because it showed the difficulty in following ones own dream, perhaps at the cost of someone elses dream. How to be true to oneself and find respect for making lifes difficult decisions.

My father gave me this book to read several years ago and it sat in my desk unread. Two years ago, my father passed away, and I just now read the book. How I wish I had read it when he was alive. My thanks to Howard Kohn for writing such a wonderful book, one I wish I had written.

A fascinating case study of a suburban American place undergoing striking demographic change. In a sense I think the title, subtitle and coverflap words may do Kohn a disservice. The potential reader may view this as somewhat of an academic/theoretical review of race relations rather than what it really is, a collection of intriguing stories about the loosely overlapping lives of a number of white and black residents of Prince Georges County, MD. I was pulled along simply to find out what happened to these people, as well as to what would happen to this place, as it swung from majority white and rural to majority black and urban in a few years. The most complicated story, that of Elvira White, bogged down some. But there is intrigue and pleasant surprise throughout. I would love to have learned even more detail about the racial, social and economic change in the key community, Hillcrest Heights, as well as in the whole county. It's a place literally in my backyard - I do wonder if a reader from another part of the country will find it as fascinating as I did. I still recommend it heartily to anyone eager for highly readable, anecdotal clues to the evolving co-existence of people of different races, as well as to those who just want good stories about real people.

I am a Student studying to be a Surgical Technologist and this is one of my core books. It is not helpful at all. I purchased a much better surg tech book called Surgical Technology for the Surgical Technologist. This is a much better book. It is directly from the AST. Berry & Kohns is geared more towards Nursing. I wouldn't recommend Berry & Kohns.

I am a senior at Vincennes University majoring in Surgical Technology and this is the text our instructor chose to use this year while awaiting the publication of her own and everyone in our class agrees that this book does not have the capability to explain things in an organized manor. This text reads like greek to us. I don't recommend this text to anyone who is in or maybe considering going into Surgical Technology.

I found this book indispensible in studying to become an operating room nurse. I have been a registered nurse for 25+ years and have not found a book more helpful than this in learning a new aspect of nursing. It shares tables, pictures, boxes of interesting notes and even websites and search engines to make learning more fun and interesting. Don't go into the operating room without it. This is no con!