Arnold Krupat's 'The Turn to the Native' is a unique bit of literary criticism. One of the few studies of American Indian (or 'Indian,' to use Sherman Alexie's preferred term) literature, aside from Ruoff's 'American Indian Literatures' and Graulich's 'Yellow Woman,' featuring Leslie Marmon Silko, Krupat's book examines major themes of Indian literature as well as the role of the non-Indian when reading Indian books.

'The Turn to the Native,' while it serves as a nice overview of major themes, especially post-Colonialism and the ideologies through which Westerners always tend to view Indian literature, concerns itself largely with Gerald Vizenor and his 'Heirs of Columbus' (two out of the four 'criticism' chapters are devoted to Vizenor, and a full one of them is devoted to 'Heirs.') Krupat identifies some of the Sartrian influences (and refutations thereof) in 'Heirs,' while placing the book squarely in the larger context of postcolonial literature and literary theory as a whole.

But the main theme of the book is IDENTITY, which he fully explores in the last (and byfar the longest) chapter, 'A Nice Jewish Boy Among the Indians.' While obstinately about the role of the non-Indian reader in general (and the non-Indian critic in particular) in exploring and reading Indian literature, it really serves as a model for later criticisms of Indian work (and, I'll admit, it helped me in my own journey into this subject far more than 'traditional' criticism ever did). Told in the form of a story (what else?), it tells Krupat's story as a Jewish-American immigrant and the offspring of Holocaust survivors, who share quite a bit in common with the Indians who, in their own way, are survivors of a different kind of Holocaust. From that basis, Krupat manages to make several statements about the role of non-Indian critics (shaky at best) and non-Indian readers (sorry, you just won't 'get' all of it). As a non-Indian, it was refreshing to read, and it helped me immensely in organizing my thoughts about Indian literature and my place as a 'twinkie' in it.

Essential reading for anyone doing scholarly work in Native American or Indian literature. Makes an excellent companion piece to 'The Heirs of Columbus.'

This is a very intelligent, beautifully written book; yet, for me, there just was not enough natural momentum to carry the whole thing off. Time...one of the main obsessions in the life of this novel, and the idea of Time being nonexistent, and ever the same with only spacial relations changing is one that is dwelled on by some of the characters. And that's the problem with this novel, with the idea of time thrown out the window every page read the exact same. Read any 30 pages and you will enjoy them immensly but to keep it up for 300 pages is more stamina than i could produce.

There were so many funny scenes though!! But, like a David Lynch movie, after awhile the bizzarities just become repetitive and annoying, with nothing deeper underlying them. Some of the kids from Coover's generations (Barth, Vonnegut, kind of Barthelme) seem to do things that would be more fun to think up and write than to actually read. With these guys (i hate to group, but oh well) you can almost always imagine them slyly smiling behind the page at their zany little creation or attack on the prevailing form of fiction. It often comes off as too academic.

At the same time not at all... there is way more chaos and madness than most uptight, imaginitively limited professors could ever handle, brimming in blood, unsound meditations, dizzying desire... i guess i dont know what to think about this novel... i kind of think Coover may be one of those writers who sometime down the road i will want to scream at myself for ever criticizing.

"Gerald's Party" depicts a single evening in the life of Gerry, a married man who has opened his home to a flood of strange friends, and describes the chaotic string of strange events which occur. The book is written in real time, its 300 pages comprising a single narrative, unbroken by chapters, from the party's beginning to its end. Gerry is the narrator, proceeding from event to event, unable to control anything, and hardly able to understand anything, including himself.

The book is experimental, but does have a plot, concerning a murder-mystery at Gerry's party of strange guests. The story is told in the tradition of surrealists, however, and not a straightforward narrative. Once the reader settles into understanding how the story works, it becomes a joyful romp through mad times.

The theme of the book is very simple: life is a major mess, and it just keeps going. People eat and drink, sleep and sex, live and die, digest and waste, kill and protect, mate monogamously and share polyamorally, control themselves and let themselves go, have children and have fun, grow up and act childish, dirty and clean, dress and undress, lie and speak true, think scientifically and think artistically, fantasize and live pragmatically, search for philosophical meaning and live hedonistically for today. And they never stop! Robert Coover pushes all the buttons in the psyche of the human animal, as if writing a reference manual for an extraterrestrial, telling it: "Here's humanity. Welcome to it!"

This book is experimental and surreal, but arguably more accessible than Beckett, and certainly more earthy and explicit. (This is so Coover can push all your buttons.) It uses an interesting form of dialog occasionally: two or three different conversations interweave their lines, making it a joyful challenge to follow along, and creating interesting intersections at times. There are two dozen characters, all with their own independent dynamic, and Coover mixes them with entertaining effect. Some are consistent, such as the wife, the son, the mother-in-law, and others, who exercise their own unique idiosyncracies steadily throughout the book, like pschological points of reference interweaving with the other characters.

This book is very well done. I cannot praise it highly enough. Coover deserves immense credit for pulling it all off. Once the reader understands the story is meant to be absurd, not literal, it becomes great fun, very vivid, and memorable. Coover is extremely imaginative, and "Gerald's Party" is a fantastic riot.

In my journey through the landscape of contemporary post-modern fiction it was about time that I paid some attention to Coover's work. Based on the reviews of his novels at Amazon, I decided to give this book a try. ...

Gerald's party is a prime example of postmodern metafiction. The story and its plotline function as mere vehicles for the exploration of a number of ideas/concepts, while the fiction is expertly geared towards the reader experiencing this wild party.

Integrating elements from two movie classics -a lot from Fellini's Satyricon and a little from Ferreri's La Grande Bouffe- injecting copious amounts of de Sade in the "party scene" from Gaddis' Recognitions and appropriating the play within a play concept from Hamlet at its zenith, Gerald's party uses theatre and time to analyze the process of perception and its resulting reality. In addition, Coover provides the reader with an encore that ranks high on the list of most cynical analyses of human relationships on record.

Coover has done a masterful job of throwing the reader in a party that has too much of any imaginable thing. While reading the discourse provides a lot of fun, it takes an effort not to get lost throwing darts in the basement. Yet, this is the work of an evil genius and finishing it left me with a feeling of awe for it's creator, while not necessarily agreeing with Coover's philosophy.

So prospective reader is this a book for you? In case you belong to the fans of Fellini's masterpiece and/or have enjoyed works by Gaddis/Pynchon/Wallace/de Lillo, I would certainly join the party.

This book is so baffling, no reader should feel bad about not understanding it. It is innovative and wonderful in its courage to experiment with new kinds of forms. There are also moments that are very funny. It reminds me somewhat of Eastern European novels (Transatlantyk and A Little Hungarian Pornography) in its attempt to challenge the reader. Vizenor is a Native American writer, and his book is an important part of the Native American Literature canon.

I've been reading Gerald Vizenor since the late 1980s and this book is still my favorite.

_Bearheart_ is a wild dystopian ride through the American heartland. Some unnamed natural disaster has deprived the United States of its petroleum reserves. Consequently, in order to meet the growing needs for wood fuels, the governmet has nationalized timber on Indian reservations. These actions lead to a chain of events that displace Proude Cedarfair, the guardian a certain cedar grove, from his ancestral lands. The reader journeys with Proude, picking up an assortment of pilgrims along the way, to Pueblo Bonito, New Mexico.

This work deserves to be read alongside classic satiric journeys from Western literature, such as Chaucer's _The Canterbury Tales_ and Voltaire's _Candide_.

When this book was first published, Jimmy Carter was President and the nation's dependance on foreign oil was stimulating new initiatives to drain natural resources from Indian reservations with as little benefit to the inhabitants as possible. Vizenor used this political context to craft a story that pokes fun at conventional ideas regarding tribal peoples, resource exploitation, and a lot more.

Vizenor depicts the harsh reality of the Native children who were taken from their homes by the oh-so-well-meaning children's aid workers (at least, that's what they're called in Canada) in order to "save" them from growing up in the Government-sponsored Native death camps...I mean reservations.

This book is a stream-of-consciousness novel, somewhat similar to "Almanac of the Dead" in style. There are many scenes that really are likely to make many readers wince. But, that said, I really laughed at many of the characters and situations depicted, particularly as the white people (who have managed to wreck their "part" of America) keep trying to steal onto the Native reservations. Yes, this could very well be the truth in a few years when we've turned the rest of the continent into a large open-pit-garbage-dump which we currently seem bent on.

The bottom line: highly recommended but likely to cause laughter that, if you are of European descent, will slowly fade to dismay as the true impact of history sinks in...

I read this book in a graduate class on globalization. The word ¡®progressive¡¯ in the title refers to the perspective of political economy ie, not the one of neoclassical or neo-liberalist. Arguments from economists, in particular political economists on globalization are somewhat hard to see. Authors focused on side effects of globalization. Their perspectives vary but they can be labeled as the view of ¡®race to the bottom¡¯ against optimistic views of neo-liberalist. It¡¯s interesting to see what should be done against hard economic trend, globalization from the perspective of losers not winners. And this book has wide coverage from IMF, World Bank to TNCs, Global financial market, inequality. But I should point out some weakness of the book.
1. They doesn¡¯t offer any explanation on what caused the globalization at all. Globalization is presented as mere background to draw their conclusions. Some Marxist schools explained the process of globalization in terms of the diminishing rate of profit. But this book lacks such logics. I think the purpose of this book, offering alternative policy to speed down the process of globalization, drove authors in that direction.
2. My major is not economics but economic sociology. So I had some difficulties to follow all lines of the economists. But it¡¯s not wholly my fault. I have had no such difficulty with economic journals like The Economist. The explanation of economic phenomena which are mainly macroeconomic one, is not kind to reader. I think authors assumed that this book would be read by expert policy makers not by mundane students.

In this excellent collection, 37 contributors from around the world study the World Bank, the IMF, the multinational corporations, movements of capital, goods and labour, and the possibilities of national economic renewal. David Felix points out that the financial liberalisation of recent decades has led to slower growth of output, investment and productivity. Mehrene Larudee observes that Mexico, for instance, grew 6% a year with the industrialisation and protectionist policies of 1951-81; when it joined NAFTA, the economy, jobs and wages all shrank. Ha-joon Chang suggests that workers in multinational corporations have a far stronger bargaining position than employers make out. These firms often threaten to move, but rarely do. They have high sunk costs in physical plant, infrastructure, subcontracted production networks and services, skilled workers, local knowledge. Workers can take control of our workplaces, industries and countries. We can impose capital controls and reinvest the wealth we create in productive industry. 'Globalisation', like the idea of God, is a ghost to frighten us. Eban Goodstein proves that protecting the environment does not destroy jobs, contrary to employer propaganda. Gregory DeFreitas argues against an open borders policy, while also opposing racial biases in immigration policy. He notes, "emigration represents a subsidy to the receiving country from the nation that trained them, as well as a loss of valuable talents to their homeland."

Arthur McEwan sums up the book's findings: "The neo-liberal regime that is being imposed on the world economy by the Bretton Woods institutions, the US government and other powerful public and private actors is doing a great deal of damage. It is a regime that harms people in all sorts of ways in the name of economic growth, but it does not even do very well at providing economic growth. The reign of neo-liberalism has not come about as some inevitable historical process, but has been actively constructed by the powerful actors that gain from its establishment. Alternatives exist, and the alternatives tend to work better."

Neoliberalism is bankrupt and corrput! This book offers the most sensible near and medium term policy options and solutions that will benefit both humans and nature until Global Capital wakes up to it's REAL responsibilities. The ecoonomic data and analysis exhibit robustness and considerable explanatory power. The prescriptions are excellent recipes for realistic change...

I had to order this and was not looking forward to it--the video is very well done and believable. The facilitators (Corey's) are wonderful and their style helpful. The workbook is easy enough to complete, it is at times, monotonous and redundant. It is very easy to follow as they use number cues to stop/start. If you have never been in a therapy group you need to see this as it is very accurate.

While using this video and workbook to train new group psychotherapists, I found the Corey's material to be one of the best available. My students were moved by the authenticity and genuineness of the actual work being done by the participants. This is in contrast to other training videos which use students doing role plays, and tend to be stilted in dialogue and boring in content. The workbook adds relevant exercises and commentary, which though tedious to complete, serve to give the students new perspectives and insight on the ways to be more effective when in the role of psychotherapist. Highly recommended.

This book looks interesting on the cover. After all, it has praise by Anthony C. Yu himself! However, if you look past the author's attempts to shock you with the worst side of China, you'll see he has more knowledge of Native American trickster traditions and only just a vague idea of the Monkey King. In addition to many Chinese language errors there are tons of places where he gets Sun Wukong's story just wrong! The most amusing to me being of course that he refers to Anthony C. Yu's "Journey to the West" translation, yet gets the author's name wrong! :) But it looks like Mr. Yu held no grudge.

The story is told in an interesting surreal style, but the plot itself is a rather cliched American man meets Asian woman tragedy.

All in all this book remains a typical novel written in the Mid-80's when China bashing was in vogue and reading novels about it was a favorite assignment of college professors. It may have seemed original in it's day and may have contained some truth, but in 2001 it seems as stereotypical a depiction of PRC as much as older novels that depict China as a mysterious, exotic land with an inscrutable population that knows kungfu and ancient secrets.

Though flawed in some ways, "Griever" is a uniquely challenging and ambitious attempt to link the trickster traditions of two very different cultures. Vizenor is obviously a kind of bull-in-the-china-shop when it comes to Chinese mythology and China in general, and his narrative represents a misunderstanding or oversimplification of China in the 80's typical of many Western accounts of that era. But unlike others in this genre, Vizenor undercuts the sincerity or innocence of his Western protagonist with a trenchant warning about the dangers of cultural imperialism and intellectual arrogance.

What, no reviews for a book which emerged from a tiny small press collective to become an American Book Award winner? Griever is a delight, a postmodern absurdist melange which offers a scathing indictment of suppression of human rights in China, and, more broadly, government and individual hypocrisy and the manner in which both big business and big government degrade human experience. Vizenor uses the common thread of the trickster in Native American and Chinese culture to present a fantasized version of his travels to China on an academic exchange program. He becomes a trickster Monkey King and all sorts of hell breaks loose. You can bet that the Chinese government will not be inviting Vizenor back soon, but I invite you to read Griever. It's a hoot! (Jim Dwyer is author of Earth Works: Recommended Fiction and Nonfiction about Nature and the Environment. Buy it here at amazon.com.)

Vizenor cleverly describes the world of animalia while preserving Native American culture, but it's not enough. Several parts were amusing, others deeply philosophical. Towards the end, however, the abstract nature of the text kills the creative voice and makes it more post-modern than literature.

The message in Dead Voices is simply that I am energy, all matter in the universe is energy, therefore I am the universe and the universe is me. And that such energy is constantly being transferred from one entity to another, always reshaping itself. What the protagonist in Dead Voices does is ride this energy. Getting rid of such neurotic thinking patterns of distorted human identity and its relation to everything else in nature brings true divinity and enlightenment. Almost all tribal cultures provide their young with the opportunity to seek their selves and enter adulthood with a spiritual connection to the Universe. The visions obtained from such experiences provide the young with self-actualization and a strong connection to their surroundings, animate and inanimate. Western Civilization somehow thinks itself separate or divorced from Nature. Vision quests provide the young with the opportunity to find their innerselves . The sociohistorical concept of race and identity that newly borns are thrown into is but the neurotic social residue of previous generations. The vision quest to understand nature serves to dissolve this neurotic state and allow for the evolution of higher, more intelligent and all-encompassing cosmic consciousness of non duality. But instead, our young are faced with this neurotic social residue and brainwashed, forced to conform to compulsory education/ignorance and once their fragmented and confused self is formed , thrown into stale and meaningless lives to suffer in a racist system. Gerald Visenor in puts it so clearly, they are dead men and dead women in a dead world. The visionary experience dissolves one's socially conditioned, 20th century, hive mind allowing the self to come to its senses. "If the door of perception were cleansed open everything would appear to man as it is, infinite" writes William Blake in . As exemplified by "WE" the self-actualized identity sees intelligence in its raw form--Nature, which operates in complete harmony, without effort or waste. The realization that YOU and I are WE and not that you "black" and me "white" or that you are a cat and I am a human, leads to one of the most ancient philosophical principles, cosmic consciousness. The connection between universe (nature) and humans is evident even in the most basic fact of life--nutrition. "The sun belts out photons of intelligence we call sunlight. That sunlight is captured by plants and is trapped in the excited electron orbits of carbon based molecules. We humans eat the plants, exhale carbon dioxide and release the stored sunlight into our consciousness" writes Michael Eisner. The problem is that Western Civilization denies itself "the photons of intelligence" by not realizing this. Gerald Visenor in suggests that perhaps what Western Civilization so desperately needs is to take a deeper look into the psyche of pre-literate tribal peoples, if we are to survive and reach a peaceful future resembling our own ancient tribal past. It is obvious where Western Civilization is heading but what is not obvious to many is that tribal societies, who are thought of as barbaric and uncivilized, have maintained a harmonious balance with nature and themselves for thousands of years. Before there were alphabets, tribal people did not read "dead words," they talked, told and retold, sung, chanted, danced, and more importantly experienced life. As some historian, which I do not remember or really think it important to remember said, "history begins when people start keeping track of events by writing things down." And so, tribal people are thought of as prehistoric and uncivilized. What Visenor suggests is that perhaps tribal peoples have a deeper insight into themselves and nature. A change in our perception is suggested in A re-examination of the distorted and self-destructive Western dualistic paradigm.

Throw out your old, tired American Indian stereotypes before stepping through Gerald Vizenor's looking glass, Alice; there are bears and tricksters in here! Very funny and true-to-form

Throughout history, no presidential administration needed to be given more benefit of the doubt than that of Gerald Ford. While other administrations had to come into existence as a consequence of death by natural causes or assassination, only Ford had to follow a person who resigned in disgrace. The political atmosphere was forever changed by the actions of Richard Nixon, as the American public no longer took the word of the president on faith. Jimmy Carter, who defeated Ford in the next election, made a simple, effective campaign pledge, "I will never lie to the American people."
However despite all of those problems, the sheer resilience and strength of the American political system was demonstrated, and that is the main theme of the book. Yes, Ford had his faults and probably could not have otherwise gained the presidency, but he is a good man and was the right person for the times. As someone addicted to the political theater, I was mesmerized by Watergate, disgusted with Nixon and sometimes laughed at Ford. And yet, I still liked him, and do so even more now that I have read this book. Given all the political problems, Ford did many things about as well as could be done. His downfall was the one really big mistake that he made, namely the premature pardon of Nixon.
Had he waited longer to issue the pardon, more could have come out, tensions would have been eased and the act would not have been quite so controversial. While I know why he did it, I will never understand why he felt he had to do it so soon. The behaviors of Nixon even as the pardon was being discussed and described in the book are amazing, showing a man who was still contemptuous of the political system. A delayed pardon may have altered that.
Gerald Ford was not a great president in terms of great accomplishments, initiatives or rhetoric. However, he was and is a decent man who was forced to pick up after an indecent one. For that reason he needs to be respected for what he did, helped make the political system work. This description of his presidency is a tribute to that decency and I encourage you to read it and pay a little more attention to him the next time you see him speak. I know I will.

Gerald Ford is not the most popular of presidents to write about. He's almost forgotten in studies of America after 1945. This book gives him his due. Profesor Greene does a fine job of examing the important issues that faced Ford, like "stagflation," the Mayaguez incident, and dealing with the Cold War. It's a balanced account and written for scholars and the general reader.

Greene adroitly recognizes that Ford's domestic legislative proposals faced staunch opposition from a Democratically controlled Congress. In foreign affairs, Ford failed to get SALT II ratified and an Egyptian-Israeli accord never materialized during his term. In addition, the author acknowledges that Ford used assertiveness in the Mayaguez incident. Furthermore, Greene avers that Ford received bad publicity from the press. Finally, Greene argues that Ford did not make a secret bargain with Nixon for a Presidential pardon. This book gives a balanced account about a much maligned President.

Good grief, this sort of thing sounds like TORTURE. People become accountants because they failed at something else. And they actually read stuff like this?

This book is very practical and covers all the pertinent information needed for a good foundation in Accounting. The book is easy to understand and gives practical examples and useful exercises.

I am an accounting Professor. I am also an accountant. I am so surprised that you thought people became accountants because they failed from something else. It is totally wrong. I am so pround of it. I am 27 year old. I have a good car, have a good house (no debt at all; I just repaid all my mortgage recently.) I do not think that people who are in the field from which you mentioned they failed can make money and have good reputation like I do. Do you know that an auditor money as much as a lawyer (I am a good auditor; please do not talk about other case)

For this book, I found it is very good. I used Prof Skousen's textbook in first accounting class as well as intermediate. My students like them so much. However, they give a little bit too much detail. A professor should adapt it when using in class. This book is a excellent alternative to another book published by Wiley.

This is the third book of a trilogy; the first two, "Blood War" and "Unholy Allies", are interesting stories (or, more accurately, story fragments) with good, fast-moving action plots and compelling characters. Unfortunately, they both suffered from a lack of an ending, or even a reasonable stop at a plausible break-point. Call me old-fashioned, but I believe that a book, even if it is part of a series, should have a beginning and an end. This series really should have been written as one very large book. As it is, I will give the series as a whole four stars, but no individual book in the series can be rated higher than three stars; how can a book be rated higher than that, when it isn't a full story in its own right? This one at least has an ending, but it has no proper beginning; I suspect that someone reading it without reading the previous books would be quite lost.

Further, I felt that the finally-revealed secret of Dire McCann's relationship to Lameth was unsatisfying, and that the characters were more than a trifle overpowered. Nonetheless, I do recommend the series, but only as a whole. If you aren't willing to read all three books, don't bother with any of them. None of them stand on their own.

A completely absorbing trilogy of books. I couldn't put them down!! Throughly excellent!! Fast moving and action packed!!

Great conclusion for a fabulous trilogy. I enjoyed every minute spend reading the three books! The final move (wich I won't say nothing)is great, and you can't even imagine it, and think if it's true or not. Great!