This book represents some of the best work on American political parties that political science has to offer. The empirical work covers the majority of party history, has impressive depth as well as breadth, and shows a remarkable sensitivity to historical and political context for a study based in rational choice theory. The theory is a bit lacking, however. Aldrich tries to explain parties as solutions to various collective action and cycling problems, but he does not explain how these solutions come about in the first place nor even how they really overcome the problems in any theoretically rigorous way. Still, it is a standard, and should be on any poli sci graduate student's shelf.

I happen to know something of Marcia Aldrich's real life family. She was the youngest of three sisters, there was no fourth sister who drowned. At 47, Ms. Aldrich is more a child of the sixties than the fifties. And she was born in a hospital, not an alley.

Even if she is trying to use these inventions as emotional symbolism, they provide no model for the empowerment of women.

Since the book is also badly written, I agree with the first reviewer who said, 'poor baby.' I wonder if African or Latino women would think being raised in a clean, upper-middle class household would be so burdensome; pink bedroom, country club, private schooling and all.

Though it's subtitled "Memoir of a Girlhood Gone Astray," this is not a memoir in any usual sense. Aldrich tells you in subtle and not so subtle ways that she doesn't give a hoot about the rituals of sincerity that define the popular memoir in its contemporary form. This book proceeds on its own terms, in a series of stories, essays, parables, dialogues, and rants that give an account of "M," the heroine, who's knocking on the door of American Girlhood like somebody in a story by Kafka. Her antagonist - the doorkeeper so to speak - is her mother, a character who looms "like giants in wartime, beyond kissing." The parts of this comic drama are alternately hilarious, bitter, and heartbreaking, and the whole is as difficult to pigeonhole as Thoreau's "Walden" - another book you could call a memoir if you wanted to.

In her experimental memoir, GIRL REARING, Marcia Aldrich prefers a literary and expansive notion of truth-telling to the literal and constrained "just the facts, ma'am"-style often associated with autobiography. As such, her GIRL REARING belongs in the tradition of Henry Adams' THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS, Gertrude Stein's AUTOBIOGRAPY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS, Mary McCarthy's MEMORIES OF A CATHOLIC GIRLHOOD, Maxine Hong Kingston's WOMAN WARRIOR, and Sandra Cisneros' HOUSE IN MANGO STREET. Like these other important works, GIRL REARING casts light on the relationship between the documentary imperative imposed on memoir and the invention necessary to tell a particular story in the way the author chooses. Aldrich offers readers the opportunity to revel in what memoir has always promised: a picaresque adventure in the voice of a distinctive "I." How readers view this "I," or Rousseau's or Augustine's for that matter, may have more to do with how fully we embrace the truths fiction can tell rather than the ones we insist facts provide. This "memoir of a girlhood gone astray" presents girl rearing as a relentless education in becoming small (through strict control of bodily appearance), unnoticed (through relegation to the powder room rather than the boardroom), and skilled only at things that do not give pleasure. At the heart of this training in psychic hygiene is a mother who is both overwhelmingly interested in the details of her daughter's upbringing and largely absent. The one source of emotional connection in M's girlhood results from a barely sanctioned foray into dirt: M, like so many girls before and after her, falls big for horses. It is a particular horse, Alert Indian, and an unconventional teacher, who give M her first access into physical control for the sake of pleasure rather than self-punishment, and she briefly thrives. Through Aldrich's moving and brilliantly written memoir, we come to see the artifice of girl rearing, of course, and its silent, psychic damage, but also more comprehensively that femininity itself is a fiction. Aldrich's tactical redirection of girl rearing's logic towards her own fictional self-fashioning in the mode of memoir is a compelling intervention in the representation - and living out - of femininity.

This book does indeed give the reeder a close look at the society and ettiquitte of this period. Since I was researching the Regency when I purchased it I was a little disapointed to find that it's focus is primarily the latter part of the nineteenth century (1830-1890), and is based primarily on American publications of ettiquitte manuals. I was delighted to discover a wealth of information about everything from dance steps to party preperation to elaborate flirting rituals that can be caried out with parasols and gloves. It certainly says everything Emily Post might have at that time as well as providing a vivid picture of society in a bygone era. A must have for anyone enamored of the Victorian era and usefull still though slightly less relavent for Regency fanatics.

Consists primarily of bits and snippits from Victorian American etiquette manuals. Some insights into high society life and how it changed through the course of the 19th century can be drawn, keeping in mind these were the suggested forms of behavior not necessarily what was actually done. There is plenty to read between the lines. Some sheet music in included along with some dance steps. There are also recipes for makeup and concoctions for cleaning. Fashion descriptions are fairly superficial, but adequate. Over all, I'm glad I bought it.

I bought this book for our 2 yr old when we found out we were expecting. She loves to read and 3 books before bed is a ritual with us. I thought this would be good since she likes Barney and it would explain things for her. The story is so dull she can't sit through it. My husband asked me if I got it at a garage sale and hoped I didn't pay too much for it. We read it twice and none of us have picked it up since.

My 2 year old son loves this book. I have been reading it to him during my pregnancy and he seems to understand now that his Mommy has to go to the doctor and the doctor will help get the baby out. He loves the part in the book where the Grandmother is there in the morning and he asks where his Mommy and Daddy are. I really think this book will help my son realize why we are not here and at the hospital.

My two and half year old son loves this book. His new brother has arrived and I feel this book helped him with the adjustment. We've read this book over and over again and he enjoys it more and more each time. He seems to be able to relate to Alex the big brother. It's a great book that my family has truely enjoyed.

This is a self-serving justification for exploitation during the worst period of capitalism in history. It's the functional equivalent of Shell Oil claiming to be environmentally conscious. Aldrich forgets that from those to whom much is given, much is expected.

I am sure the book is well researched but it's a bit boring. Do you really need that much space to tell such a simple story. I don't think so.

Virtually all other books describing America's moneyed class have been written by social scientists, primarily sociologists and economists, or romantic novelists, who do not have a clue as to how these people really live.

Aldrich, on the other hand, comes from one of America's old moneyed families (his grandfather was a prominent U.S. Senator at the turn of the century and his uncle was Nelson Rockefeller). Educated at St. Paul's and Harvard in the fifties, he was provided with all of the benefits that money can provide.

Unlike the modern ultra-rich, however, he was also provided a conscience and a sense of duty to his community. This book is, in large part, his effort to justify his own existence and that of his fellows to a society that often views them as little more than leeches who had the good fortune to be born into great wealth. In my opinion, and I suspect his as well, he ultimately fails, but he does provide the best defense of inherited wealth that I have! read. In the course of that defense, he provides great insight into how Old Money thinks -- F. Scott Fitzgerald was right; they really are different from the rest of us.

Those who enjoy this book should buy a copy of Money and Class in America by Lewis Lapham, editor of Harper's magazine and himself from Old Money.

As a fan of personal writing who collects published and unpublished diaries as well as books about keeping a journal, I pick up everything on the subject I can find. This is one of the few purchases I regret having made. Notes from Myself lurches from ponderous, excessively formal prose to incongruously informal comments, never quite managing to settle into an engaging, accessible style. Aldrich spends a good deal of time describing the journals of famous people, from Pepys to Woolf, but rarely quotes them. Even more irritating, the book is littered with grammatical errors and typos, and in one place Aldrich recommends a book but misspells the author's name! The ideas in this book may be worthy, but the poor writing and careless presentation were so distracting that I couldn't manage to finish it. I won't be keeping this book for my collection. Anyone interested in exploring the possibilities of journal-writing would be much better off with Tristine Rainer's classic The New Diary.

This is a wonderful book on journaling. If you liked this book and would like to read and use mroe books on journaling, read "The Healing Journey" and "The Healing Journey for Couples," both by Phil Rich. There are also 5 other journaling books in the Healing Journey series.

As an instructor I felt the book was very good, but the students could not use the software on excel 97 or above. It was really frustrating, and I will not use it next semester.

This is an excellent book for chefs to be. It gives in detail how to design a decent menu. But the price I paid for it is way to much. I picked up the book in our school bookstore, Lambton College, in Sarnia, Ontario Canada. It cost me 102.95 plus GST Tax.

THis book incorrectly focuses on the FBI as the capturers of Ames and leaves out the mole hunting CIA team's chase of Ames. While they did mess up and take years to identify the problem, the CIA team caught Ames. THis book is also way short on providing insight into Ames motives, tactics and techniques. A MUCH better book on the subject is "confessions of a spy" by Pete Early. Earley is the only journalist that was able to interview Ames and his well researched book provides the story in Ames own words as well as interviews with his russian accomplices.