Nelson George's arguments are clear, well-organized, and powerful. While reading, I was forced to look at things differently than I ever had before. The ideological vision of integration is an honorable one, but the simple fact demonstrated in The Death of Rhythm & Blues is that integration is forever indebted to black utility for white profit. It is likely that race relations in this country would be quite different if whites had not benefited from the talent and ingenuity of black athletes and performers in such a profitable fashion. This is ground that history teachers rarely, if ever, tread on. It is quite tragic to know that the unique and powerful black culture from which basically all popular music is derived, can be so easily forgotten or ignored. George's position is most intriguing in that it reminded me that history may belong to the teller, but there are many stories to be told. I consider myself fortunate to have heard this one.

this book is very honest.10 years back the cross-over dreams achived by michael jackson,prince,lionel richie,whitney houston,janet jackson, and the rise of rap at the time put this book on point.cuz 10 years later rap has crossed over like the artist i mentioned and artists before them and though artists like michael jackson always had a cross over crowd many other artists have tried to hard to be pop accepted. and it's coast them careers and credibility.this book points out artists that have tried to hard to be accepted.also lack of black on black support as far as management,tour personnel,etcc.black radio and programmers.this is a must read very insightful and to the point.also it's my fave of his books cuz it predates everything that is happening in hip-hop and rap today not to mention the lameness that goes for r-n-b today.artist that tried to cross-over so bad have made it worse for todays r-n-b. this book shows that point and more.

I've read a lot of books on musical roots in the last 30 years...to understand what really happened in the history of black music in America you have to understand what went down for the African-American in a white controlled enviroment. Mr. George holds nothing back and lets true history smack us all in the face. I would like to comment on a couple of points relating to white men playing black-roots music. Nelson commented that although Elvis was totally involved in black music ( and hair styles, clothe,etc.) that he essentially became a "wimp". I feel his material got wimpy, because of the white-music-machine & Tom Parker..but,I beleive the inner Elvis had "soul" in it's truest form. Then Nelsons examples of white boys who actually could play the blues 1. Eric Clapton, who I find leaves me cold with the text-book perfect licks pumped out with computer accuracy & 2. Johnny Winter, who to my ear does the classic wanna-be style playing of "more- notes-faster"...typical of the white boy trying so hard to over compensate, that it loses what it was all about in the first place, FEELING! These are just small things that bugged me a bit...the book is not about white boys wanting to play black music...it has a much deeper and more important message...a very eye openning look at reality in the music buisness and the black experience...I will continue to read Nelson George, he is saying things I'd like my children to understand. People deserve to here the truth.

One of my smartest purchasing decisions was to pick up this work by Nelson George in June 1986 when it was still in hard cover. I've never let it out of my sight since. Time has proven it the precursor of a deluge: 'Dreamgirl,' & 'Supreme Faith' by Mary Wilson (1986, 1990), 'Temptations' by Otis Williams (1988), 'To Be Loved,' by Berry Gordy (1994), 'Inside My Life' by Smokey Robinson (1989), 'Dancing In The Street' by Martha Reeves (1994), and 'Between Each Line of Pain and Glory,' by Gladys Knight (1997), among others. I bought them all and I read them all. By far the worst, was the October 1993 work by Diana Ross, 'Secrets of a Sparrow,' which was quickly named the worst non-fiction work of the year by People magazine. I couldn't argue with them.

'Where Did Our Love Go,' on the other hand, proves a truth we discovered in the day of the very music it chronicles: no amount of tepid covers surpasses a towering original. Perhaps because Mr. George was not an insider at Motown in the 60s, his history of the company is so objectively good. I've read it many times in over 16 years, and haven't found a date or factual mistake.

And it is balanced. The wonderful music of those glory days in Detroit is given the respect and affection it deserves, as well as the how-it-came-about details. Mr. George acknowledges as most of us do, that Motown's 60s sound is timeless, and is going to outlive Berry Gordy, the artists whose names appeared on the labels, and we baby-boomers who were weaned on it.

Yes, the who-struck-John stories of disappointment are delineated fairly too: the career declines and /or disappointments of folks like Martha Reeves, Gladys Knight, Chuck Jackson, Marvin Gaye and, especially Florence Ballard. But unlike the recollections of the authors listed above, 'Where' is not told by a writer needing to come out smelling blameless or put-upon at the end.

All these years later, 'Where Did Our Love Go,' by Nelson George remains the single most essential biography of Motown Records you can own. Buy it anyway you can manage to, even used - just don't ask to borrow mine. Beyond it, there are two companion works you should also seek out for some fair and detailed 'inside' looks of Motown in those days: 'Divided Soul,' David Ritz' account of Marvin Gaye's life, which appeared first in 1985, and might have been helped in its excellence by the fact that its subject was no longer around to censor it or 'advise.' Finally, from 1989, J. Randy Taraborrelli's 'Call Her Miss Ross,' could likely be a dozen times more factual and objective than the 1993 work of the former Supreme herself could ever be!

Although a little short on photos (it was obviously not the authors' intention to be another photo book), this is in many ways the best book for someone really interested in the subject of Motown to own,in that the author pulls no punches. Other books on this record company/hit machine of the 60s & 70s suffered from censorship by the record company's head and his people.

This book does not suffer that hinderance, and it allows us to read what really went on behind the scenes. It was not such a happy family with Berry Gordy Jr. as the paternal head as it is often depicted.

An excellent book, both readable and informative, and well worth getting hold of for all fans of the music who want to know what really went on as the records were made and the tours were run.

Part of the success of Motown lies in Berry Gordy's tight control over public relations. Put simply, he would not cooperate with reporters until and unless he knew, and approved of, the nature of their stories in advance. In "Where Did Our Love Go", Nelson George breaks the mold. This is an unauthorized biography of the Motown Record Corp. George managed to circumvent Gordy's media chokehold and, thereby, come up with a picture quite different from the common myths. This results in two marvelous types of revelations throughout this book: (1) The "dirt" on Motown; and (2) the good, joyful, and uplifting things that we never knew. Get this book!

You don`t need that I recomend this book because it is the classic text in endocrinology and related books. I am sure you will Enjoy this masterpiece fron the first page. If you dont want to read complety, it is a revision book in the clinic, house or office. Buy it and you rememberme always.

As a practicing endocrinologist in New York, i have found this book to be very useful. The text explores all areas of endocrinology in great detail and is an excellent board review tool. There are many diagrams. The section on gestational diabetes is especially well written. I saved over $100 dollars by purchasing this book through Amazon as opposed to buying it from my local university bookstore. A multi volume edition would be a good thing to have as this is a very big heavy book.

Nelson George does a Great job of showing through the history of FIlm How African-American Actors&Actress's are portrayed.the power of Image in front&behind the camera is on display here.very detailed of how African-American Image's translate from head too toe with audience's.this book holds nothing back.Nelson George brings another Winner here.

Nelson George is one of My Favorite Writers&He has a way with words&conecting so much together.He brings a strong fusion too His work.I enjoyed the essays so much&the way He broke down era's,styles&overall entertainment.get a copy if you can.

First (I am verily a bit emberassed to state the following); however, as many say the truth (and only the truth) will set you free. Therefore, I must state, write and say that I had never heard of George Herbert; nor any of his writings. This book in question, i.e., George Herbert: Country Parson, the Temple (The Classics of Western Spirituality by Wall N. John Jr, et al is not a book in the traditonal sense. It should be seen as a guidebook for the country parson and offers advice on how to comfort and the latter part is on the nature of church terms, e.g., virtue. I would have to classify this book, i.e., George Herbert: Country Parson, the Temple (The Classics of Western Spirituality) by Wall N. John Jr, et al as a great book and a must have for anyone whom is interested in books dealing with spirtual beings.

Although the book is minimal on color illustrations and its strength relies mainly on its text, contrary of what I had expected, I was very pleased with it. It is a very comprehensive study of the work of Nelson, one of the pioneers of American industrial design, giving more importance to the concepts and the process of design, rather than to the produced objects, buildings and exhibitions themselves. The preface by Ettore Sottssass is equally outstanding, as most of his written works are.

This book is a reprint of Herman Miller company's 1952 catalog and it's a super reproduction. With all the Nelson, Eames and Noguchi material inside, this book shows some of the best furniture produced in the 1950s. Great reprint job.

Though a cliché, the phrase "A picture is worth a thousand words" finds worthy illustrations, even literally, in this book by artist and author George Nelson, "The Alamo: An Illustrated History."

A collection, by common usage and by operative definition, is an accumulation of objects for purposes of examination, comparison, study, display and viewing, and enjoyment. Private collections usually contain treasures only a chosen few can enjoy. Nelson has done every history enthusiast a real service by putting into literal publication this volume of Alamo images. They are, in a word, fascinating.

Though not as massive in its heft as the facsimile of Leonardo's "Leicester Codex," in format Nelson's volume could easily serve as a superb "coffee table" book. In it, one finds accounts, illustrative and written, of the Alamo's evolution throughout the centuries. Some of the artist's renderings are the author's own, and most of the photographic images are historic.

The most unique picture in the book might be the 1849 Alamo daguerreotype. It's unique mainly for two reasons: it's the first photographic image known to have been made in Texas - and it's the only known photograph of the Alamo Church before the now-iconic campanulate roof was added by the U.S. Army not long after the image was made. That there are a few people visible in the photo lends a special distinction - a human quality - to the image, even though we're seeing in it a literal freeze-frame of mid-19th-century time. That instant shows certainly not the battle that occurred there thirteen years before, or even a "reality" of daily life at the moment the photo was made: what it captures is essentially a brief view of one of history's "coffee breaks."

We should be thankful for the existence of this particular Alamo photo, and that George Nelson included it in this book. Made the very year Chopin died, the picture seems to cement the attachments that tie us to our own history. Historic photographic images like this one have certain primacies others do not, and only the most minimal reflection and effort reveal to us the important connections between the times of those photos and the corresponding people and events. As just one example, the first known photographic image ever made is a "heliograph" on a pewter panel by French lithographer Joseph Niepce. A view from his window at Gras, it took eight hours to expose, is primitive by any standards and lacks real detail. Nevertheless, that photographic image is still extraordinary: when it was made in 1826, Beethoven was still alive, with the mighty Missa Solemnis and the Ninth Symphony already two years behind him. There's no way to know that the 1849 Alamo daguerreotype has no hidden story: can anyone say that none of the people visible in that photo didn't actually witness the events of Sunday, March 6, 1836 from a safe point in or near the town of San Antonio de Bexar? Conjecture may be fruitless, but it's still fascinating.

The artist's speculative rendering of the 1836 Alamo compound, one of the finest in the book, has an odd detail. The southern main gate seems totally surrounded by a U-shaped fortification of earthworks and cannon, with two rather narrow doorways on the eastern side of the Galera (often referred to as the "Low Barracks") being the only visible means of ingress or outlet to and from the entire compound. It's conceivable the artist might be suggesting that at the time of the battle, entry and exit might have been effected via those two doorways, perhaps with the intent of maximizing protection of the compound under conditions of seige. This still leaves open certain questions about how larger apparati might have been brought in. Even if this unusual peculiarity was an oversight in the rendering - after all, nothing is "perfect" - it certainly doesn't invalidate the overall worth and quality of the book, just as a wrong note or two wouldn't invalidate an otherwise fine performance by a fine pianist.

Exemplified in Nelson's book is the "Show, don't tell" principle. The finest writers show us with prose; and as the skilled musician can "hear with his eyes" by reading a score, the finer artists can "tell" us with images rather than words. Resurrected in this book are conceptual renderings and actual photos of places in eras long gone. With such a wealth of illustrations, the book offers us a rare and fascinating opportunity for comparison and study of images that have a very direct Alamo connection.

Though there's much to learn from the written accounts given here, the images themselves are the mean feature of this book. And images - especially historic ones - can resonate with us as no written descriptions can.

...

If a picture is worth a thousand words then George Nelson's "The Alamo: An Illustrated History" is worth many times that. Through much research Mr. Nelson gives you a birds eye view of the Alamo grounds through the ages with his drawings. Actually I like his drawings better than the historical drawings and photographs used in the later part of the book. Its a great book just to carry around the Alamo grounds as you try to imagine what it was really like in past times.  
I recently met Mr. Nelson at the Alamo gift shop. He was holding court, signing books and telling tales of Texas. Filling all the tourist with the "real" story of the Texas Revolution. He was sincere, knowledgeable, and seemed to really enjoy interacting with the crowd. 

"George Nelson has chosen to catalog in a chronological fashion events associated with the building of the Alamo and its geographical setting from prehistoric times to last year. . . the images speak to us and tell us of the changes endured by the most well-known building in Texas. . . (Nelson's) reconstructions add immeasurably to the reading of the public's understanding of 'What was a mission?' . . . He suceeds where many literary works fail. . . "

This beautiful book attempts to trace the formation of hip-hop culture through interviews with those who were around for the first ten years. Fricke (a curator at the Experience Music Project museum) and Ahearn (photographer and director of the seminal hop-hop film Wild Style), attempt to document the New York City scene from about 1974-84 (right up to the formation of DefJam and Run-DMC) through photos, original party flyers, and the words of the DJs, MCs, b-boys (breakdancers), graffiti artists, and promoters who were there.

The early portion shows how DJ sound-system battles emerged in the early to mid '70s against the backdrop of a decaying Bronx, attracting youths to more or less impromptu parties in parks, streets, and playgrounds. Competition was fierce as to who had the loudest sound system and the best records, and tough security (gang members) was a necessity. One thing that gets disappointingly glossed over is how this copied what happened in Kingston, Jamaica ten years earlier. It was exactly the same: competing street sound systems, with competing DJs who would take the labels off records so spies couldn't find out what they were playing, gangs, violence-all the same. DJ Kool Herc, who lived in Jamaica until 1967, makes a fleeting reference to it, but that's all.

For the first few years, the DJs were the "stars" of the scene, offering an alternative to disco music. But as DJs started to learn how to manipulate their turntables to extend the "beats" from a song, eventually MCing started to become more vibrant. What had initially only been calls to the crowd to keep the party's energy up evolved into more and more sophisticated catchphrases, freestyle rhymes, and soon MCs were writing and memorizing lines. Again, it's a bit puzzling that no mention is made of Jamaican"toasting" which emerged in the mid to late '60s. This was the practice of DJs who would talk and rhyme over the records they played, and soon progressed to a point where they would have instrumental versions of popular songs laid down for them to rhyme over-often in a boasting style, talking about how they were the "#1", "champion", and so on. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

The other two legs of hip-hop culture are given somewhat less space. The material on breakdancing (aka "b-boying" to the true old-schoolers) seems to indicate that the "b-boy " crews filled a kind of competitive void left by the waning of street gang culture. And while there was some of this dancing at the parties, music was the focus, rather than the dancing-which didn't get big until the early '80s. Graffiti, on the other hand, was clearly a prominent feature of the NYC landscape from the early '70s on. But, what's most interesting here is that while the graffiti artists often went to parties and knew some of the music people, the idea that graffiti was part of a larger hip-cop culture didn't emerge until late in the game. It wasn't until the downtown Manhattan art scene started getting interested that the music, breakin', and graffiti were packaged-by the white art scene-a unified "street" culture.

The book is lavishly put together, with tons to look at-however, the oral history structure isn't the greatest. From a historical perspective, it's great to hear all these unknown voices from the past telling about their roles, but at times it does get tedious. Especially when it comes to details on how so and so met so and so and that led the the formation of this or that. Even more so late in the book, when record companies get in the mix, and then all kinds of resentments come pouring out. There could have been a little more editing, as well as a little more context to fill in some of the gaps. For example, there are a lot of references to gangs being involved in the early scene, and shootings, and violence, but there's never any unified discussion of it. The same for the role of drugs in the scene, at one point someone (I think Spoonie Gee) talks about how everyone was totally coked up all the time, and that's something that could have been explored a little more. In any event, it's still a great book for anyone with an interest in the days of hip-hop, giving proper space and voice to all the unknowns who deserve to be known.

eye opener for all those who think oldskool hiphop only stops at Run-dmc, or the Furious 5, recognize the forefathers who layed down the foundation of the Hip-Hop culture and what they were facing at that time.
Book has pretty good historical context and the stories flow together. Much props to mr.Ahearn and mr. Fricke. Only giving it 4stars because I'm still halfway in the book. YES YES Y'ALL.

This book is SWEEEEEEEEET yo!
Amazing pix and stories.

H H I PPPPP
HHHH I P P
H H I PPPPP
H H I P