This marvelous and insightful immigration history represents cultural history at its finest, with brilliant thoughts on the broader issues of homeland, citizenship and national identity alongside detailed investigations of Polish, Irish, and Eastern European settlers. If only this book was published in paperback, so it would be more accessible in the classroom!

Jacobson's book is at once a painstaking review of original texts and a highly compelling read, no matter how long ago your family arrived. A must read for professional historians and anyone interested in American Studies and Cultural History

This book was my introduction to crafting with beeswax. The book has detailed instructions and beautiful detailed photographs to follow along with. Six areas of beeswax crafting are introduced to the reader: candle making, beeswax modeling, making cone shaped crayons, encaustic art (melting crayons onto an iron and then "painting" it onto paper), furniture polish, and making beauty creams and soap.

As I said this is a great introduction, and as such, sometimes there is only one project per category. I think this book is helpful for a beginner and if you find that enjoy these crafts and you want to do more of one the same, then you may either custom design your own projects (when applicable) or find other recipes or instructions from other books and/or sources. If you know and understand this before buying the book I think you will be very happy.

The photographs are wonderful and I found them very helpful. The different kinds of beeswax are explained and important melting safety tips are clearly written. Many different types of candle making are explained, some using sheets of wax that are rolled by hand and others that used melted beeswax. Dipping candles, hand modeling candles, and using molds, both hard and flexible are all included here. Five recipes for creams are included, and one soap that uses beef tallow (fat). Five wood/furniture polish recipes are here, one of which is made with beef tallow. Instructions to make the crayons are here along with tips for successful sketching with them. Encaustic art is clearly explained although it still seemed a difficult craft, and requires specialty equipment, which does not make it easy or inexpensive to try out. (I had previously read about it without accompanying photographs and didn't understand what was being communicated. Other instructions I've read elsewhere don't fully outline the proper materials needed, so this book did a great job of explaining it.)

A great introduction if you've never watched these crafts being made in person or if you are a visual learner and have a difficult time following directions that are not accompanied by photographs.

I have read Dangerous Luck by David Makow twice now, and both times I was unable to put it down. Dangerous Luck is a story of a young Jewish man's perseverance and ingenuity in war torn Poland. It was a time when the Nazi war machine was rolling across Europe and millions of innocent people were being murdered and shipped off to face the atrocities of concentation camps. Being Jewish this young man was forced to change his identity, hide his religion,separate fron his parents and live with the fact that discovery could mean death. Dangerous Luck is a fascinating easy to read account of survival during the Holocaust and a man's deterimination to forge ahead, educate himself and obtain a better life.

David Frick is a proffessor of Slavic History and Literature at the University of Calfornia, Berekley. His book is well written and contians an in-depth study of the various Protestant, Catholic and Arian translations of the Polish Bibles. Great footnotes, heavy use of primary sources (with Polish and English versions) make his work crucial for the study of the Reformation in the Polish-Lithuenian Commonwealth.