Reviews (1)

Draws Very Intriguing Connections
In four brief, well-researched chapters, Fermaglich shows how Stanley Elkins on slave personality, Betty Friedan on oppressed women, Stanley Milgram on obedience to authority, and Robert Jay Lifton on the psychology of survivors, drew an analogy between the Nazi experience and aspects of American society. Moreover, she demonstrates how these analogies, such as Freidan's between the concentration camp and the suburban home, proved to be extremely productive for other thinkers, in a host of ways and disciplines. Important conclusions are that these thinkers were part of a liberal moment that stressed universal values and the human condition. Even if they did not stress Jewish issues, Fermaglich intelligently indicates how these four thinkers were influenced by tensions in American Judaism, and how their work belies the now common view that thinking seriously about the Holocaust did not arrive until the late 1960s and early 1970s. A book full of intriguing connections between thinkers and ideas, ideas and social contexts. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. History    2. History - U.S.    3. History: American    4. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)    5. Moral and ethical aspects    6. Psychohistory    7. Psychological aspects    8. Sociologists    9. United States - General    10. History / United States / General    11. Social history    12. The Holocaust    13. USA    14. c 1960 to c 1970   

Reviews (3)

My father was described in the book very breifly
My father was a close freind of the deceased in the book. He never met the author, but he knew the family. He was described in the book as building his own house (which is fictional, because he never built a house). Thisbook is very graphic in how the bodies were found, and how the family waskilled. Wharton makes up some of the names and of course some of the eventsin the book.

Non stop reading ~~ tears pain and anger into taking action!
A year and a half ago I read the, then latest book, "Ever After," by my favorite author, William Wharton. The author of "Birdy," "Dad," and most recently, "Houseboat on the Seine," depicts the horrendous 23 car pile up on Oregon's Interstate 5 in the summer of '88, that occured due to field burning near Albany, Oregon.Seven deaths resulted out of overt negligence on the part of Oregon laws, businesses, political action committees and the farmer(s) involved.The author dealing with the personal impact of this tragedy, eventually decides to take action and attempts to pursue legal recourse.The book outlines the tremendous forces that come into play within our business/legal/political system(s) when it comes to assuming responsibility/liability for both the personal and ongoing environmental disasters that evolve out of negligence and irresponsibility.This book stirs even the apathetic into action

moving memoir of daughter's death by artist/painter
William Wharton, author of DAd and Birdy writes a moving account of his daughters death in Oregon and of his attempt to bring attention to the dangeous practice of field burning by large seed companies.An intensely moving experience, especially if you have children.Highly reccommended ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Biography / Autobiography    2. Biography/Autobiography    3. Civil Procedure    4. Crime And Criminals    5. Grass seed industry    6. Oregon    7. Sociologists    8. Traffic accidents    9. Trials, litigation, etc    10. Wharton, William    11. Wrongful death    12. Crime & criminology   

Reviews (3)

Liz James Artscene's First Book Review , by permission
I recommend this book enthusiastically, for several reasons: First, amid the helter skelter of my own life, I treasure books I can enjoy in segments. Second, I enjoy books which I consider well written, and third, I relish non fiction books that read like imaginative prose but are actually non fiction works. TRAVELS WITH ERNEST meets each of these criteria. Savoring, dipping into this book, is a joy. TRAVELS WITH ERNEST enabled me, a compulsive stay-at-home, to see distant places. For example, as I write it's deep winter in Ohio, 2006, and I'm writing about Laurel and Ernest's ninth soujourn at St. Petersburg Beach, Florida in March 2002. Laurel, an accomplished poet, writes first, revealing her sharp yet lyrical talent for descriptive prose. It's her first trip since 9/11 and she breathes deeply "imagining millions of zaps of the happiness potions that live in the sea, some call them 'negative ions.'" She describes the GulfGate Condos as "color coordinated, swirls of turquoise, shrimp, and shells on the Wall Tex, chair covers, upholstery, pictures, dishes, towels, sheets. I sink into the comfort of the cliche." We're allowed to relish a visit to Evander Preston's jewelry store where Ernest buys Laurel "a pair of gold earrings, flat and smooth with wrinkled edges like the sea." In Ernest's account they revisit the Don Cesar Hotel which used to be a haunt of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Coincicentally, they want to see President George W. Bush and his motorcade drive up to the Don Cesar for a $25,000 a plate fundraiser. As two retired profesors they exchange hilarious wisecracks about the price! They also intend to have lunch in an ice cream parlor which was once named Zelda's, but they have to settle for the new Uncle Andy's. Ernest, who is an aficianado of--indeed, an expert on--F.Scott Fitzgerald's THE GREAT GATSBY, describes the scene with accuracy and literary elan. As Laurel puts it, "Ernest can riff." He describes the Don Cesar as "our goal the flamingo pink mirage shimmering up ahead in the Florida heat, gigantic yet fragile looking, a Hansel and Gretel castle that might at any moment dissolve like sherbet into the Gulf of Mexico." Laurel asks Ernest whether he remembers George W. Bush at Yale. This sets Ernest off on a riotous yet highly informative ramble on those Yale days, 1963-71, when Ernest was assistant professor of English there. He recalls "classrooms full of good looking kids who'd rather discuss yachts than Yeats, most of them looking like, oh, clones of the Kingston Trio." Ernest writes skillfully, fearlessly about the then-new New Criticism and explains how and why N.C. eventually contaminated--yes, nearly murdered--the craft of literature, yea, education. Here is a marvelous expose, a must, for a throng of serious writers who have been suffering in silence and wondering for some time what really went wrong. In TRAVELS WITH ERNEST the authors break down societal barriers of alienation by sharing their conversations, thoughts, experiences. It's the actual story of two people who love each other and share their work and their lives. I treasure this book. It's kind of like reality TV, but the ideas are more exciting, and the language is platinum. REVIEWER: Elizabeth Ann James
This review was written by Bev Hogue for the OHIOANA QUARTERLY, Summer 2005, pp.224-5, quoted by permission
TRAVELS WITH ERNEST could be called Travels with Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, William Shakespeare, T.S. Eliot, and William Butler Yeats, for its unique travel narratives are informed by a wide range of literary works.At one point Ernest Lockridge muses on his tendency to follow the footsteps of famous authors: "Myth and literature help order and direct your life, so you're not just traveling fecklessly about.They're like a map.We're able to map ourselves onto literature and onto myth."Lockridge and his wife, Laurel Richardson, travel with and without maps in TRAVELS WITH ERNEST, a hybrid volume combining travel narratives from two distinct perspectives.Lockridge and Richardson are both authors and emeritus professors at Ohio State University, Lockridge in English and creative writing and Richardson in sociology and cultural studies.For this book, they traveled to places as different as Death Valley, Beirut, and Ireland, each writing about the trip from his or her individual perspective; the book also includes transcripts of their conversations about the trips and the writing process.Ernest's essays, Laurel's essays, and the couple's conversations work together to triangulate in on exotic places and the process by which people come to know the world.Richardson describes their method: "Experiencing, writing, conversing, rewriting, conversing, writing.Although we agree on what we see, we have a different edge, a different take on experience."Most interesting are those forays that take the writers off the map entirely.Over and over again the map has been lost or left behind, but our intrepid explorers stumble on stubbornly, ending up lost or imperiled.Even while exploring familiar terrain, they discover hidden hazards.Lockridge, for instance, is haunted by memories of his father, novelist Ross Lockridge, who wrote RAINTREE COUNTY, a classic of mid-century Midwestern literature, and then committed suicide at the peak of his success.The terrain they travel is both exotic and familiar: a high-rise apartment building in Russia where they encounter cherished family members; a tiny apartment in Copenhagen that evokes memories of their student days; an ancient castle in Ireland that bears a family name.Wherever they travel--Beirut, Copenhagen, Shenandoah--they find their people, their history, themselves.And they also find Ohio.Lockridge describes Ireland's Midlands as "a dead ringer for Ohio on our best day of the year."Even while looking over Yeats's acclaimed Lake Isle of Innisfree, Lockridge finds an island paradise that looks familiar: "Thick with trees and shrubs it's the size of my back yard in Worthington, Ohio."Whatever maps its authors may follow, TRAVELS WITH ERNEST leads right back home.

Not Just for Academics
I loved this book! Lockridge's humor pulled me in and Richardson's lyrical writing kept me reading. This is a book that cuts a broad swath through an academic couple's life. It took me to places I had never seen, made me think about my marriage in new ways and examine my career history with fresh eyes. Travels with Ernest is unique, compelling, and provocative. I highly recommend it. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 1938-    2. 20th century    3. Biography    4. Biography / Autobiography    5. College teachers    6. Educators    7. General    8. Literary    9. Literary Criticism    10. Lockridge, Ernest,    11. Married people    12. Novelists, American    13. Sociologists    14. Travel    15. United States    16. Literature: History & Criticism    17. Non-Classifiable   

Subjects:  1. Biography / Autobiography    2. Habermas, Jèurgen    3. History & Surveys - Modern    4. Philosophy    5. Sociologists    6. Sociology    7. Sociology - General    8. Philosophy / General   

Editorial Review

John Patrick Diggins has been a professional historian of the retreat of the American left for many years, most recently in Read more

Reviews (3)

Flaws in Diggins 'Max Weber"
While the treatment of Weber's life and thoughts is quite useful and rather well written, the text contains over thirty (30)errors of German and Latin expressions. These are orthographical, Correction
I certainly agree with the earlier reviewer from Portugal as to the highquality of Diggins' book. However, the reviewer is wrong about the term"iron cage." Weber very clearly refers to capitalism as an"iron cage" in the powerful concluding pages of his book"The Protestant Ethic and the Sprit of Capitalism." Weber bothadmired and feared the economic system that he saw as our fate. In a worldin which values inevitably conflict and unintended consequences are therule, every social system and every social initiative will be tinged withirony and tragedy. Capitalism is no exception; it is a mixed bag, bothbeneficial and costly. For Weber, only by both responsibly safeguardingourselves from its more dehumanizing features and at the same timemeasuring up to its demands upon individual initiative can the human spiritsurvive and in some measure determine its future. We are suspended, with norelief other than our own individual and collective will to act, betweenthese perennial and contradictory demands. Weber harbored both hopes anddoubts that human beings were up to the task. Diggins' book brings out thismessage very well.

Great Introduction to Weberian Thought!
I thoroughly enjoyed this book.Max Weber was a modern thinker who defied categorization.Was he a philosopher, an historian, a political theorist or a sociologist?This leads to some confusion as to his message.Forinstance, contrary to what one of the reviews mentions, Weber didn't viewCapitalism as an "iron cage", but it's modern derivative,bureaucracy as that cage.Few people will argue with that comment. Strangely enough too, as Professor Diggins indicates, the questions thatWeber struggled with one hundred years ago are still very much with ustoday.Could that be because the situation of pre-World War I Germanyburdened as it was with a dysfunctional political system and weak leaders,yet possessing a strong, vigorous economy and formidable military, is verysimilar to the that of America today?I found the author's discussion of Weber's problems of reconciling the "ethic of principledconvictions" with the "ethic of responsibility" particularlytimely.After finishing the book I found myself wanting to know more aboutMax Weber's insights into the modern condition. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Biography    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. Biography/Autobiography    4. Methodology    5. Philosophy    6. Political    7. Social sciences    8. Social scientists    9. Sociologists    10. Biography: general    11. Sociology, Social Studies   

Subjects:  1. 1850-1937    2. Anthropologists    3. Archaeologists    4. Biography    5. Biography & Autobiography    6. Biography / Autobiography    7. Biography/Autobiography    8. Historical - U.S.    9. History Of Archaeology    10. Mexico    11. Mineralogists    12. Native American Archaeology    13. Niven, William,    14. Social Scientists & Psychologists    15. Sociologists    16. Niven, William   

Subjects:  1. Biography    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. Portraiture    4. Quotations, maxims, etc    5. Reference    6. Social Stratification    7. Social registers    8. Sociologists    9. United States    10. Upper class families    11. 20th century    12. Family history    13. Genealogy    14. Reference works    15. Social classes    16. USA    17. c 1800 to c 1900   

Editorial Review

Now a professor of ethnic studies in California, RoxanneDunbar-Ortiz turns her eye back to her own roots as a "Dust Bowl Baby"in rural Oklahoma. In telling the story of her family and their hardshipsin the Depression, Dunbar-Ortiz introduces the reader to somefascinating characters who are certainly not the "white trash" caricaturesof popular belief. Interspersed well with her own story are historicalfacts that give depth to the narrative and correct popular misconceptionsabout "Okies" (some of which were popularized by John Steinbeck inRead more

Reviews (9)

a great ride
I could not put this book down. It is an engaging book. I read it for some background research on John Steinbeck and the Grapes of Wraths. If you have read Steinbeck's masterpiece you have to read Red Dirt. I think Roxanne's memoir completes the story of the Joads. The psyche of the "Okie" comes alive and the drive of Roxanne to break away and then come to terms with it is fascinating. I loved this book so much that I use it for the Ethnic studies classes that I teach. I believe that to understand different ethnic groups we all have to understand what makes White America tick. This book delivers a much-needed look at the class divide among white America and no matter how much the poor whites have been abused by their richer cousins they still stand by their side. Why? Because they are white. This was a great ride

The shaping of an activist.
This book was my introduction to Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz.I read it before I learned more about her and her career as an activist for the past 40 years.She reflects on her life from birth until her move to California.She grew up in rural Oklahoma during some of the worst years ever.These were the years that shaped her, the launching pad of her feminist, anti-family, pro-socialist, anti-war, ... efforts.
history and struggles of the frontier settler class
...Read more

Subjects:  1. Biography    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. Biography/Autobiography    4. California    5. Childhood Memoir    6. College teachers    7. History    8. Oklahoma    9. Oklahoma - Local History    10. Ortiz, Roxanne Dunbar    11. Regional Subjects - Midwest    12. Rural Sociology    13. Rural poor    14. Social conditions    15. Sociologists    16. United States - State & Local - General    17. Whites    18. Biography: historical    19. Biography: political    20. Inter-war period, 1918-1939    21. Postwar period, 1945 to c 2000    22. Rural communities    23. Second World War, 1939-1945    24. Social classes    25. Social history    26. USA   

Subjects:  1. Biography & Autobiography    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. Historical - General    4. History: American    5. Political    6. Sociologists    7. Biography: general    8. Political science & theory    9. Socialism & left-of-centre democratic ideologies    10. USA   

Reviews (1)

Steal This Rebel
The book's great. A complete account of the life and times of one of the 1960's New Left's major characters. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Biography / Autobiography    2. Biography/Autobiography    3. Sociologists    4. American history: postwar, from c 1945 -    5. Biography: general    6. USA   

Reviews (34)

A good look back
During the tumultuous period of the 60s when author Dennis Smith wrote Report From Engine Company 82, the book was a cry for help from exhausted, frustrated men.Men who cleaned up in the aftermath of other exhausted and frustrated inhabitants of a society stretched to the breaking point.
My Perspective on "Report from Engine Co. 82"
I spent 10 years in the fire service in both engine and truck companys. While I have many memories and stories to tell, the author, Dennis Smith, sums up the life of a fire fighter in an urban environment about as well as can be possibly told. Trying to balance the unpleasantries and sadness against the satisfaction of saving a life or helping a family overcome one of life's most agonizing moments is very well portrayed in this book. This is what a fire fighter's life is about folks. There is no other book that I can remember that tells it any better than this. If you're thinking of a career in a big city fire department or for that matter, if you're even thinking of becoming a volunteer fire fighter this book is a must!

For those wanting a career in fire, this is step one...
Before anyone decides to dedicate their lives to becoming a firefighter, they would be wise to start their research here.Some 30+ years after it was first published, this book still shows remarkable insight into the lives, struggles, and emotions of a professional firefighter. When I started on the road to becoming a firefighter, being a volunteer and reading Dennis Smith books asserted in my mind that my life would be wasted doing anything else.For others, this may convince you that the job is not for you.It isn't for everyone. Either way, this is a very enjoyable read and worth the time and money for anyone, not just firemen and wannabe's. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Biography / Autobiography    2. Reference    3. Sociologists   

Reviews (2)

Mead and Benedict: Kinship of Women
I found this book extraordinary good reading. It reviews their lives during childhood and moves thru both Mead's and Benedict's lives until Benedict's death in 1948. The last chapter does provide information about what happened to the leading players in the lives of both women in later years. I found it much easier to read than Howard's book, which is completely different, with lots of stories about Mead but very difficult to follow chronologically. The author's background in psychology is evident and I recommend the book highly.

A Special Friendship and Bond
As a historian of anthropology, I looked forward to reading this book. The relationship between Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead has been subject to much speculation. No scholar has seriously analyzed the impact therelationship had on the two women in question or American anthropology ingeneral. While several biographies are available about Benedict and Mead,none delve deeply into the relationship they shared throughout their lives.Having finished the text in question, I am torn. For, as a historicalanalysis of Benedict and Mead the text is superficial. The author, HilaryLapsley, a New Zealand psychologist who teaches women's studies, has atendency to skate above the surface and does not delve deeply enough intothe respective controversies Benedict and Mead became embroiled in duringtheir careers. Read more

Subjects:  1. Anthropology - General    2. Biography & Autobiography    3. Biography / Autobiography    4. Gay/Lesbian Nonfiction    5. Sociologists    6. Women    7. 20th century    8. Anthropology    9. Biography: general    10. Lesbian studies    11. Women's studies   

Editorial Review

Arthur Evans leapt into the public imagination with his 1900 discovery of Crete's Palace of Knossos, interpreted as the lair of the mythical Minotaur. Though his findings were a crowning achievement of archaeology's golden age, then, as now, questions have been raised about Evans's excavations and the conclusions he reached. In the richly detailed Read more

Reviews (3)

We don'tknow if any of this is true.....
Well the record says that Evans excavated Knossos in the 1890's, Found the remains of a palace and tablets that he thought were Minoan writing, and through his digs and his published finds, put Archaelogy into the 20th Century.
Revenge of "Modern" Archaeology
Minotaur by Joseph MacGillivray
Reception Theory and Victorian Psychosis by Example
Sandy MacGillivray's in depth analysis of the life and times of pioneer Cretan archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans was a pure joy to read.The author's own experiences as a professional in the field on Crete add great weight to his arguments as he finds himself coping the Evans' legacy on a daily basis.I really got the sense that the author knew Evans, both the man and the scholar, through close attention to and extensive research on the amply available primary sources.This is a wonderfully scholarly, yet very readable and highly interesting book to both the professional archaeologist and interested armchair amateur. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 1851-1941    2. Archaeologists    3. Biography    4. Biography / Autobiography    5. Crete    6. Evans, Arthur,    7. Excavations (Archaeology)    8. Fiction    9. Great Britain    10. Greece    11. Historical - British    12. Knossos (Extinct city)    13. Minoans    14. Palace of Knossos (Knossos)    15. Scientists - General    16. Sir,    17. Sociologists    18. Evans, Arthur   

Subjects:  1. Biography & Autobiography    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. Biography/Autobiography    4. Reference    5. Sociologists    6. Women    7. Women's Studies - General    8. Biography & Autobiography / General    9. Biography: general    10. Feminism    11. Social Science / Women's Studies   

Reviews (2)

Mean streets warm heart
This book was something that stirred alot of things inside of me. I was so awestruck, that I did what I have never done with any other author and that was write a letter. The best way to tell my review is to share part of the letter so here goes. Soul searchind is something most of us do at one time or another. Looking for the meaning of life, why we are here? Etc, etc. Sometimes we indulge in our sorrow so much that we forget to see that life is beautiful. So beautiful like our first love, our only love or the love of our lives. How familiar I find the feelings you describe of trying to be cool and the best of friends with your dad. Remembering your mother and the softness, tranquility and peace of mind you can only find in a mother's arms. The elated feeling you had when Trina was your girlfriend Your sense of being a true gentleman, treating her like your secret treasure. The flood that washed over you when she was lost to another man. Damn!!! That tore open an old wound. The author made me feel his pain, his joy to a lesser degree because nothing can compare to living the actual events. The memoir translated into Spanish in no way lost its power whats more there are certain things that can double the impact spoken in the tongue of Cervantes.

This book was awesome.........
it takes you into another time and place and makes you feel as if you were there partaking in every moment described by the author. Being a Puerto Rican growing up in New York's Spanish Harlem was and still is hard, he also describes certain racial issues he confronted as a Puerto Rican of color. Overall the book takes you through a journey through Harlem and other areas in a distinct and creative way. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Biography & Autobiography    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. General    4. Sociologists    5. Spanish: Adult Nonfiction    6. Specific Groups - General    7. Biography & Autobiography / General    8. Thomas, Piri   

Subjects:  1. Biography & Autobiography    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. Biography/Autobiography    4. Gay Studies    5. Political    6. Sociologists    7. Biography: political    8. Gay & Lesbian studies    9. Social Science / Gay Studies    10. Sociology, Social Studies   

Subjects:  1. Biography / Autobiography    2. Emigration & Immigration    3. Sociologists    4. Sociology   

Reviews (2)

A Vivid Portrait of South Africa,A Tender Boyhood Story
Brilliantly, achingly rendered, a wonderful read.Spend some time with the Pifer family in South Africa in the 1930's and '40s.You'll come away with a love of these people and a deep affectionate knowledge of this vast and challenging country.

Charming account of a childhood in Africa
Inside all of us there is a compelling need to read something of our ownhistory, something that is quaint and undiscovered.And it is here thatthe attraction of Innocents in Africa lies. It is a beautifully writtenbook, about Drury Pifer's childhood growing up in Africa - the uniqueinsight of an American family, unfettered by the conventions of British,German and Afrikaner society, trying to make their way in the world.Thereader is easily transported back to Southern Africa of the 1930s and 40s,to Nigel, a dreary mining town near Johannesburg, and to the windsweptdesert beaches of South West Africa.It is a story of childhood memories,charmingly told, lyric sentences bringing alive a place whose history needsto be delved.But more than that, it also manages to pose the importantquestions of the day, in a delightfully apolitical but neverthelesspertinent manner.Most of all however, I will treasure this book becauseof what it records - an account of unchanging small-town life somewhere inAfrica, where previously I only had my parents' oral anecdotes of their ownchildhood to rely on. When Pifer describes `Time in Oranjemund' as bearing`no relationship to whatever time has since become.A day then lasted ayear, or a lifetime'...even I can relate.It is nostalgic.It is thepoignant tale of a family's quest for a living in the mining towns ofSouthern Africa, based on their blind American optimism that ability willbring promotion.In Africa, the Pifer family would ultimately only finddisappointment, and yet the author notes, `these would be our family'shappiest few years, but how could we know that?'Read more

Subjects:  1. Americans    2. Biography    3. Biography / Autobiography    4. Biography/Autobiography    5. Pifer, Drury L    6. Social History    7. Sociologists    8. South Africa    9. South Africa - History    10. Republic of South Africa   

Reviews (1)

A beautiful reminiscence of life in New Mexico
This captivating memoir vividly describes life in Santa Fe and the surrounding territory before all the changes that came with World War II. The author, a well-known anthropologist, had a fascinating childhoodgrowing up on Canyon Road and attending Los Alamos Boys School before itbecame the site of the Manhattan Project. Reading about his adventures onthe Hopi and Navajo reservations made me wish I could turn back the clockand visit those lands when they were still so remote and untouched. Abeautiful, moving book by a man fully engaged with life. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 1914-    2. Anthropologists    3. Arizona    4. Biography    5. Biography/Autobiography    6. Ethnic Studies - Native American Studies    7. Hall, Edward Twitchell,    8. Hopi Indians    9. Navajo Indians    10. Sociologists    11. Sociology    12. United States - General    13. Hall, Edward Twitchell    14. Social Science / Native American Studies   

Reviews (2)

Two Years In The Melting Pot
As of you always heard people saying America is the melting pot, or a salad bowl, well this book tells the story of a Chinese man learn what it is to be and how hard it is to adapted to another culture. As the heart broken story start with him leaving his home of his family and children are waiting for him when he get back from his educational journey. Nearing half of his life away, he have leave home many times some times even long and much more dangerous then this journey to America but everyone still strong, but the story, the author have his way of describing the sadness of leaving his home and his family. two years in the melting pot
Are you interested to know how a Chinese person experienced cultural shock in the US ? Then this book is a MUST.No book that I have read about the Chinese (and I have read many indeed) has touched me as profoundly as this precious glimpse into the personal feelings (rarely shared with Westerners) experienced by a gentle Chinese man during his two year stay in the Chicago area during the early 1980s. His English is excellant and his literary style very expressive and easy to read. His honesty and humor can not fail to touch the soul of the reader. I am deeply grateful to Mr. Liu for sharing his thoughts and experiences with us. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 1971-    2. 1981-    3. Asians In The U.S.    4. Biography    5. Biography / Autobiography    6. Biography/Autobiography    7. Chinese    8. Description and travel    9. Social life and customs    10. Sociologists    11. United States