A wonderful collection of enchanting, old fashioned stories to read aloud for the pre-school to about second grade age range. Excellent resource for teachers. I use this in my Waldorf classroom.

These two volumes inaugurated Yale's publication of the complete publication of the letters of Horace Walpole, 18th century conoisseur and man of letters. Letter writing then was an art form, and each of Walpole's letter is an individual performance. Other great letter writers of the period are (in English) Edward Gibbon, the historian, and the poet Thomas Gray, which are also recommended. Walpole, the son of the 1st English prime minister, devoted his life to collecting art, building his home outside London in Gothic Revival Style, and commenting on the literary, political, and artistic developements of the day. The editing job is excellent, if directed more towards the knowledgeable reader than to someone approaching these letters for the first time.

Wonderful, evocative account of old Peking before the mass destruction by the current regime. This book reads like the wonderful Blue Guides of Europe (before Blue Guide recently changed the format and gutted so much of the information). The extent of description is amazing - the Lama Temple's rituals, for example, involving canabalism in pantomine: the monks worked themselves into a frenzy and then tore to shreds a man-like figure made of dough and filled with red liquid jam - mess everywhere!. The authors also recommended that tourists of the day go armed in the temple because of the determined attentions (ahem!) of the monks.

I used this book as a guide in the 90's while living in Hong Kong and visiting Peking - it still had great value despite all the losses (the coverage of the Forbidden City is incredible) I found many interesting out-of-the-way spots I would have missed if I'd relied on my strangely (sadly) poor Blue Guide China. In Search of Peking is one of those books (like Austin Coates' Myself a Mandarin for Hong Kong) that will really make you glad you lived (or visited) in China, despite all the modern concrete.

This wonderful book tells the story of where the James family and its money came from, how Henry Sr. almost lost his inheritance for the frivolity of buying too many books, then reclaimed it and used it to raise the most remarkable intellectual family yet in American history. The book is big, which gives it enough space to delve into the tragedy of the two younger James brothers, the maturation of William and Henry Jr., and the closeted life of Alice.

I came away with a new respect for the somewhat eccentric Henry Sr., with his diverse interests in educational philosophy, Swedenborg, and Emerson. He is the under-sung hero of this narrative and its true author.

Perhaps I enjoyed the book most of all because it allowed me to feel almost a part of the family, to live what to me is a fantasy. If you feel yourself a kindred spirit to William, Henry, Jr., or Sr., or Alice, I would heartily recommend this book.

To cite Meriwether Lewis as Editor of this and other volumes of this University of Nebraska Press edition, edited by Moulton, is an injustice to Moulton. Lewis' efforts never got beyond a pros- pectus. Further, to list Clark as merely a con- tributor, is unforgiveable.

I read this book for my Classic Ethnographies seminar at school. It is by far one of the most interesting ethnographies I have had the pleasure of reading. It combines ethnography with history and gives the reader a good overall view of the Iroquois. I can't recommend this book enough. If you only read one book on the Iroquois, this should be that book!

The story of the Lewis and Clark expedition is the one great exploration of the American continent that was actually undertaken by Americans rather than by Europeans visiting the New World. "The Lewis and Clark Trail Then and Now," with text by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent and Photographs by William Munoz, compares the way things have changed along the route almost two hundred years later. When Lewis and Clark left St. Louis in May of 1804 the United States was a land without telephones, railroads, cars, electrical equipment or dozens of other modern conveniences we take for granted. The region of North American between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean was fill of rivers and mountains, native tribes and indigenous animals, all waiting to be "discovered." Today, this entire region has been mapped, and a lot of that uninhabited land is now covered by farms and ranches, towns and cities. Even the mighty Missouri and Columbia Rivers that Lewis and Clark followed have been damned. Still, there are wilderness areas, such as the Rocky Mountains, where what you would see today has changed little from the time Lewis and Clark first trekked through their landscapes.

However, overall the emphasis in this book is more on the "then," even though most of the pictures are of the "now." There is a reproduction of an 1802 map showing the great area of the unexplored American West and some early 19th-century paintings, but the photographs are of contemporary vistas and shots of some of the equipment taken on the expedition. The book does not make an attempt to match up old paintings with new photographs, but rather tries to combine them to give a sense of the places visited and the peoples met along the way. Ultimately, the book fills in the spaces between that unfinished map at the start of the book and the completed map made by Clark that appears at the end. Each chapter is essentially a two-page spread on chronologically arranged topics from Members of the Expedition and Life on the River to Finding the Shoshone and Descending the Might Columbia. The net effect is a concise look at the history making expedition and how it fulfilled President Thomas Jefferson's mandate. Young students assigned to research the topic or simply interested in this part of American history will find "The Lewis and Clark Trail: Now and Then" provides a solid look at the subject.

This is a highly readable, brief account of the journey of Lewis and Clark, America's premier explorers. The duo set out in 1804 at the behest of President Jefferson to see if in fact there was a "Northwest Passage" (waterway) to the West Coast, and to explore the sorrounding regions. Most fascinating are the tales of encounters with various Indian tribes, as well as the weather related hardships endured by the Corps of Discovery. Reads nicely for young people or as a general introduction to the subject for adults. The book could have used some more illustrations and maps, but otherwise nicely researched.

Lewis "Buck" Crook was my grandfather. For me, my brothers, my cousins, and the rest of my family, the Crook Book, as it is affectionately known, is a great source of pride. I developed a web site dedicated to the life and work of Buck Crook. A number of pictures from the Crook Book are featured there.