SirReadaLot.org

June 2005, Issue #74

Guide to This Issue

Art: Fundamentals of Bauhaus, Art as Time, Civil Rights Photography of Charles Moore, Frederick Hart's sculpture – traditional & radical in its sensuality, Memoirs: Life on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, Business: Decisions for Business, Skilled Facilitator, Ecology of Small Business, Children's: The White Table: Set for the Absent Guests at Annual Veteran's Day Dinner, Poor Mr. Tuggle's Troubles, The Digestive System, Education: Basic Academic Skills for Individuals with Disabilities, Learning Words, Tools Readers Need, Mexican Americans Land Ethic, Successful Parenting, Faith and Resilience, Aggressive Children: Fawns in Gorilla Suits, Psychology: Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Emotion Storm, The Gay Clinician, How People and Animals Learn & Behave, History: Civil War Hospitals, Centennial History of Las Vegas, Boston in History, Quarry Remembrance, When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World, Wilmington, NC as WWII Homefront, American Cultural Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century, South Florida & its Hurricanes, New Mexican Role in WWII, Home Crafts: Breadmaking, Literature: Portrayal of Black Men, John Fowles' Journals, Balkan War in Fiction, Bubonic Plague in English Literature, Gutcheon' Leeway Cottage, The Dressing Room in Eighteenth-century English Literature, Science: The Promise of Ecological Design, Sustainable Living, How Cells Communicate in Health and Disease, Philosophy: Platonic Aesthetics, Politics: South Park Conservatives, Religion: American Buddhist Poetry, Feminist Mystical Theology, Occult Alternative History, Dating Christian-style, Science Fiction: Impinging Dimensions, Sports: Richard Petty, Jackie Kennedy Onassis as Horseback Rider, Travel: A Book for Francophiles – or Francophobes, Driving the Alaska Highway

The New Vision: Fundamentals of Bauhaus Design, Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture by László Moholy-Nagy, translated by Daphne M. Hoffmann (Dover Publications, Inc.)

One of the most important schools for architecture, design, and art in the twentieth century, the Weimar Bauhaus included among its distinguished membership László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946), a great innovator of the European avant-garde and one of the most fertile experimental artists of his day.

The New Vision, an introduction to the aims of the Bauhaus movement, was designed to inform laymen and artists about the basic elements of Bauhaus. A painter and sculptor, Moholy-Nagy experimented widely with photography during the 1920s when he taught at the Bauhaus. During that period he developed a theoretical approach known as the ‘new vision’ – a method in which he used photography to expand his audience's knowledge and perception. The term also serves as the title of the book.

Illustrated with examples of students' creative experiments and typical contemporary achieve­ments, the text expands upon Moholy-Nagy's ‘new vision’ theoretical approach.

Revised and expanded in 1947, the text contains an autobiographical sketch, "Abstract of an Artist," included in the present edition.

…an able and important contribution to a most vital subject. – Saturday Review of Literature

[The New Vision] has proved to be more than a personal credo of an artist. It has become a standard grammar of modern design. – Walter Gropius

Generously illustrated with black and white photographs, The New Vision is a clearly presented, valuable introduction to the Bauhaus movement.

Arts & Photography

Art and Time by Philip Rawson, edited by Piers Rawson (Fairleigh Dickenson University Press) is a work of ideas, not abstract theory or pure art history.

Philip Rawson, in Art and Time shows how time is a fundamental element in our perception of the arts. He proposes an integrated framework within which to explore and appreciate the subtleties and complexities of this essential key to the reading and understanding of meaning in art.

Following an exploration of the ways art can differ from ordinary empirical objects, while still being rooted in direct human experience, Rawson distinguishes the different levels of artistic creation.

Rawson (1924-1995) was Dean of the School of Art and Design, Goldsmith's College, University of London; a Fellow of the Royal College of Art, and a sculptor and fine-art draftsman. His son, Piers Rawson, the editor of this book, with a doctorate in art history, is a photographer, artist, and writer.

The analysis in Art and Time ranges from examination of imagination and time, symbolic representation of time and the time-related implications of constructing and experiencing art, to our intuitive response to the transcendent realm where time and meaning are intricately involved in our final reading of the artwork. Important concepts covered include: the nature of time as the sum of diachronic and synchronic states; the roles of analogy and metaphor; the time-relative values of art materials and the vocabulary of artistic making, expression, and invention; memory and diachronic tactile experience; and the cultural and spiritual resonances that shape our engagement with both explicit and implied manifestations of time in art. Recognizing its special character in this context, a separate chapter is devoted to photography.

Readers are offered clear guidance in the methods artists, working with structural forms, iconography, and the technical resources of their media, can use to incorporate time as an integral element of their creation. To complement this aspect, the process of reading artworks is discussed, both as a time-based intellectual activity, and as a way of accessing each work's fullest meaning more intuitively. This approach enables readers to interpret and experience more actively their encounters with the arts, whether contemporary, from less familiar cultures, or from the more distant past. The book includes fifty-four black-and-white illustrations.

Art and Time offers wide-ranging insight into the aesthetics and philosophies of time across different artforms, cultures, and periods. Intended for both arts practitioners and anyone wishing to extend their understanding of the creative process and its underlying principles, the book reveals the interplay of art and time from technical execution and formal invention to the spiritual and intuitive. It opens up fresh possibilities for artists to develop their work in new directions, and for readers to engage with artworks, including architecture, drawing, sculpture, painting, and photography, in challenging and fulfilling new ways.

Arts & Photography / Social Sciences / Civil Rights / African Americans

Powerful Days: The Civil Rights Photography of Charles Moore by Charles Moore, with text by Michael S. Durham, with an introduction by Andrew Young (The University of Alabama School of Law)

Most of Charles Moore's civil rights photography originally appeared in the weekly Life magazine, for which he freelanced from 1962 to 1972. Moore, who in 1989 received the first Kodak Crystal Eagle Award for Impact Photojournalism in recognition of his coverage of the civil rights struggle, was the only photographer inside the administration building at the University of Mississippi on that September night in 1962 when rioters fought to prevent the enrollment of James Meredith the following morning. He photographed Martin Luther King Jr. in 1958, while being arrested by two unsuspecting police officers in Montgomery , Alabama . He followed the Freedom Marchers from Chattanooga through Georgia and into Alabama in 1963.

That same year he was in Birmingham when Bull Conner, the city's police commissioner, turned dogs and fire hoses onto black demonstrators. He photographed the savage beatings that took place on the Edmund Pettis Bridge in 1965, and then followed the ultimately successful marchers, including both local people and national celebrities, on the long walk from Selma to Montgomery . “By this time,” writes Michael S. Durham, a former Life reporter who provided the accompanying text for Powerful Days, “[Moore] had been in so many trouble spots that he could characterize Selma rather casually as ‘a bit of a racist town, not as bad as many others’.”

Mr. Moore's stark, crisp photos of freedom marchers beset by police dogs and fire hoses . . . helped to shape the nation's conscience. . . . [This book] contains many images that will be wrenchingly familiar to those who lived through the proud moral turning point in American history, and that might serve to inspire younger generations. – New York Times Book Review

Alabama photographer Charles Moore documented one of the most painful chapters of American history – the civil-rights movement. Powerful Days is powerful stuff. The freedom marchers look as heroic as Iwo Jima Marines fighting their way up a mountain – which is just about what they had to do. – Newsweek

Every once in a while we receive a well-documented treasure of American history. This collection is such a treasure. . . . [ Moore 's] black-and-white photos of that era are classics of photojournalism, and as Powerful Days documents, those classics have lost none of their force and energy. – Southern Living

Powerful Days is a dramatic record of a painful yet inspiring era in American and southern history – there are few Americas who would not recognize Moore's most famous photographs – even if they have never heard of Charles Moore. His images of the civil rights movement have become, and remain today, internationally known icons – vivid, searing portraits of pivotal moments in the struggle for racial equality in the American South. This book brims with these moving images, bringing back the intensity of those days for those who lived them, and teaching a new generation about an important part of America ’s history.

Biographies & Memoirs / North Carolina

Confessions of an Outer Banks Filly by Sybil Austin Skakle (The Chapel Hill Press, Inc.)

To little Sybil, observing the world from the porch of her family's house above her father's store in the middle of Hatteras Village, North Carolina, in the 1930s, life was inventive and wonderful – little girls rolled hoops, played bob jacks, licked nickel ice cream cones on hot days, built tents from the fifty-pound burlap bags the chicken feed was delivered in, and – if they were very lucky – scored a direct hit on the head of one of their daddy's customers when they spit carefully through a knot hole in the porch floor.

In Confessions of an Outer Banks Filly by Sybil Skakle, who for more than twenty years served as a pharmacist for the Durham County Hospital, readers find out about her pre-dawn swimming lessons in a red wool bathing suit with Miss Maude, the town's Postmaster; little girls singing endless rounds of ‘Frankie and Johnnie’ on the front porch; breakfast at the dining room table with their feet in the tidewater during a hurricane; and a ghost who played the piano in the middle of the night.

The Great Depression, a Hatteras Christmas, the Hurricane of 1936, recipes for Poor Man's Cake and Hatteras Island Pone Bread, outdoor toilets, Monday washday – the smallest details combine to create an idyllic picture of life in a fishing village of five hundred souls back when all a child needed to have a good time was an imagination.

In Confessions of an Outer Banks Filly author Skakle evokes memories of simpler times. Readers old and young alike will be delighted at the evocation, done with warmth and charm.

Arts & Photography / Biographies & Memoirs

Frederick Hart: Changing Tides with a foreword by Frederick Turner and an essay by Michael Novak (Hudson Hills Press) is a comprehensive look into the life and talent of a classical sculptor whose passion for the spiritual and figurative aspects of art are represented in both his public commissions and private work.

Frederick Hart's sculpture – traditional in its adherence to the human figure, radical in its sensuality, and innovative in its materials is the subject Frederick Hart. In 256 pages and with more than 220 illustrations, it demonstrates how Hart (1943-1999) brought about a resurgence of interest in the human figure and in the idea of beauty.

The sculptor's working process is documented in photographs that show the Daughters of Odessa as a clay maquette, in progressive clay versions and scales, and in the culminating versions in bronze and clear acrylic resin.

With a foreword by Frederick Turner, Founders Professor of Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas , Dallas , former editor of the Kenyon Review, the book sheds light on Hart's early, monumental interpretation of the Creation, which graces the west facade of Washington National Cathedral. Previously unpublished correspondence and documents from between 1968 and 1984 illuminate Hart's sixteen-year journey from obscurity to renown, as he created the most successful body of editioned sculpture of the past century by an American artist.

In the book’s opening essay, Michael Novak, distinguished educator and author, George Frederick, Jewett Chair in Religion and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., writes, "The work of Frederick Hart is changing the world of art," vindicating the artist's strong belief that with the new century would come changing tides in the style, form, and direction of the arts. In November 2004 the President of the United States awarded posthumously the National Medal of Arts, the highest award given to artists and art patrons by the government, to Hart, "For his important body of work including the Washington National Cathedral Creation sculptures and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial's Three Soldiers which heralded a new age for contemporary public art."

Beautifully illustrated, the dramatic, large-format monograph Frederick Hart is essential reading for anyone interested in the rebirth and development of figural sculpture in America . As Robert Chase says in the preface, this intimate view into his life may guide readers to a more complete understanding of Hart as an individual who never abandoned his convictions about art and beauty. This volume also makes an excellent gift for the discerning art connoisseur.

Business & Investing / Management & Leadership

Rational Choice and Judgment: Decision Analysis for the Decider by Rex Brown (Wiley-InterScience)

Decision analysis (DA) is the logic of making a decision using quantitative models of the decider's factual and value judgments. DA is widely used in business, government, medicine, economics, law, and science. However, most resources present only the logic and models rather than demonstrating how these methods can be effectively applied to the real world. Rational Choice and Judgment offers a different approach to decision analysis by focusing on decision-making tools that can be utilized immediately to make better, more informed decisions.

Examining how deciders think about their choices, Rational Choice and Judgment provides problem-solving techniques that not only reflect sound modeling but also meet other essential requirements: these techniques build on the thinking and knowledge that deciders already possess; they provide knowledge in a form that people are able and willing to provide; they produce results that the decider can use; and they are based on intimate and continuous interactions with the decider. The methods outlined in this text take into account such factors as the use, the user, the organization, available data, and subjective knowledge.

Rex Brown, Distinguished Senior Fellow in the School of Public Policy at George Mason University , who has forty years of experience in top-level decision consulting, begins with the basics. The text advances progressively, enabling readers to develop, and then use, more sophisticated decision-making skills that can be applied in both public and private enterprise, including:

• Modeling decision-making under conditions of uncertainty or multiple objectives.
• Risk analysis and risk assessment.
• Facilitating group decision-making.
• Making personal life choices and political judgments.
• Economic analysis of competitive and strategic decisions.

Simple decision-making models are integrated into the thinking process to add logical rigor. Readers are given the chance to apply their new skills to resolve real-life problems. Replete with exercises, case studies, and observations from the author's own extensive consulting experience, the book engages readers and enables them to master decision analysis by doing rather than simply reading. Using familiar situations, readers learn how to handle knowledge as it unfolds in the real world. The cornerstone of Rational Choice and Judgment is a term project presented in the final chapter, where readers can pick an actual decision-making problem and apply their newfound tools to prepare a recommendation. A sample student report is provided in the Appendix.

This book takes an innovative approach to decision analysis that moves away from cumbersome, quantitative methods to give students and professionals decision-making tools that can be applied immediately. The broad applicability of Rational Choice and Judgment makes it an excellent resource for any organization or as a textbook for decision-making courses in a variety of fields, including public policy, business management, and systems engineering.

Business & Investing / Human Resources

The Skilled Facilitator Fieldbook: Tips, Tools, and Tested Methods for Consultants, Facilitators, Managers, Trainers, and Coaches by Roger Schwarz, Anne Davidson, Peg Carlson, Sue McKinney (Jossey Bass Business and Management Series: Jossey-Bass)

Since it was first published in 1994, The Skilled Facilitator has become a landmark book in the field. Written by Roger Schwarz, an organizational psychologist and president of Roger Schwarz & Associates, The Skilled Facilitator Fieldbook is a classic work for consultants, facilitators, managers, leaders, trainers, and coaches – anyone whose role is to guide groups toward realizing their creative and problem-solving potential.

With the contributions of Anne Davidson, Peg Carlson, and Sue McKinney, consultants with Roger Schwarz & Associates, The Skilled Facilitator Fieldbook is based on the same proven principles outlined in Schwarz’s groundbreaking book. The book offers the tools, exercises, models, and stories to help facilitators develop sound responses to a wide range of challenging situations.

The book is filled with suggestions, exercises, and examples for creating effective relationships, teams, and organizations. It includes tips, model interventions, worksheets and templates that readers can use. Step by step, the book provides practical guidance for introducing the ground rules and guidelines for engaging in deep-level interventions.

Roger Schwarz and his coauthors are meticulous in their guidance for facilitators, consultants, coaches, and leaders everywhere. They dissect our encounters with each other and help us recognize what works, what doesn’t, and what we might do about it. This is a book to return to again and again. – Geoff Bellman, author, The Consultant’s Calling and Your Signature Path

Anyone who strives to lead more effectively will find this book a treasure trove of tips and tools. Whether you’re an executive or small team leader, a parent or a politician, The Skilled Facilitator Fieldbook will be the reference you reach for to increase your capacity to lead. – Karen Thomas-Smith, global training and development director, SAS

This book provides the tools, techniques, and actual experience to truly practice shared leadership. Roger Schwarz and his colleagues provide not only the theory but the practical, hands-on experience required to develop high performance teams. – Jay Hennig, vice president, Moog, Inc.

The Skilled Facilitator Fieldbook truly provides the reader with an understandable ‘root cause’ perspective on why people interact the way they do and the means to create change. It goes way beyond the ‘memorize these rules’ approach advocated by many practitioners. – Sid Terry, director organization development, NA Manufacturing, Kraft Foods

The Skilled Facilitator Fieldbook spans the full scope of the successful Skilled Facilitator approach and includes information on how to get started and guidance for integrating the approach within existing organizational structures and processes. The book is a practical resource and reference for trainers and human resource personnel to help them build their facilitation skills.

Business & Investing / Management & Leadership

The Company We Keep: Reinventing Small Business for People, Community, and Place by John Abrams, with a foreword by William Greider (Chelsea Green Publishing Company)

You can count the seeds in an apple, but you can’t count the apples in a seed. – Ken Kesey

There is a revolution going on in corporate America , and social entrepreneurship is leading the way. Rejecting the myth that short-term profits are the only indicator of business health and wealth, John Abrams shows how building a company to serve the needs of people – employees and owners, – community, and the environment can lead to lasting business success. 

Socially responsible investments have grown exceptionally in the same year that ‘moral values’ determined a presidential election. So why has business been so slow to catch on? In The Company We Keep small business owner and entrepreneur John Abrams, cofounder of South Mountain Company (SMC), a 30-year-old, employee-owned design and building company on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, makes a case for a return to workplace values, and shows how to profit by them.

The Company We Keep sets down a framework for a model of employee ownership and community involvement that has piqued the interest of entrepreneurs around the country. The chapters pivot on eight cornerstone principles that may be effective building blocks for other businesses:

Chapter 2: Cultivating workplace democracy. In 1987 Adams restructured from a sole proprietorship to an employee-owned cooperative corporation, making ownership available to all employees. The responsibility, the power, and the profits belong to the group of owners.

Chapter 3. Challenging the gospel of growth. A cherished business doctrine is that growth must be a primary business purpose: ‘grow or perish’ is a mostly unquestioned truth. South Mountain favors certain kinds of growth, but not expansion for its own sake, which author Edward Abbey has described as "the ideology of the cancer cell."

Chapter 4. Balancing multiple bottom lines. SMC assigns priority to a collection of bottom lines while consigning the traditional single bottom line – profit – to its appropriate role as a vital tool that serves the others.

Chapter 5. Committing to the business of place. South Mountain has a long-term investment in the small island community where they work – all their eggs are in one geographical basket. With all its strengths and weaknesses, assets and problems, this is the place that must serve as a laboratory for their experiments with small business.

Chapter 6. Celebrating the spirit of craft. In all that SMC does, craft is the essential unifying concept. Although Adams says the joy of his own work is in its variety – the thing that inspires his work is the craftsmanship he see around him.

Chapter 7. Advancing people conservation. The Vineyard has a serious affordable housing crisis. The island's captivating charm is culpable. The affordable housing story is about people conservation and about sustainability. People conservation is the essential complement to land conservation. Can the housing problem be fixed? They have decided, as a company, to invest heavily in the notion that it can.

Chapter 8. Practicing community entrepreneurism. SMC has attempted to use the financial resources and the web of relationships that derive from their work to help solve community problems and to encourage a better future for the place where they live and work. They bring an entrepreneurial approach to these efforts, taking risks and learning from both their public failures and small successes.

Chapter 9. Thinking like cathedral builders. Their view of time is squarely at odds with short-term business thinking. The work of SMC will continue for generations. They try to think about their work as the cathedral builders thought about theirs, building for generations.

With a craftsman's eye, a storyteller's sensibility, and a CEO's pragmatism, Abrams argues for broader and deeper measures of success, questioning widely held assumptions about commerce and democracy. He brings thirty years of experience to bear on the tremendous opportunities and challenges faced by small business owners and employees in the places they work.

John Abrams is a philosopher disguised as a businessman. His chapter challenging the gospel of growth ought to be read by every business person struggling to keep up with a crushing workload, and wondering why we're all so determined to grow bigger faster when it's killing us (and the planet). John shows how we can step off the treadmill and back into life. – Marjorie Kelly, editor of Business Ethics magazine and author of The Divine Right of Capital

John Abrams is not only one of my favorite builders on the planet, he's also one of my favorite thinkers. In this age of mergers and acquisitions, where bigger is always better, and money is the only bottom line, The Company We Keep offers hope for those of us who value craft, compassion and community. By devoting the same level of craft to their business that they do to their buildings, John Abrams and his fellow employee owners have created a remarkable construction company that ranges from crafting second homes for the wealthy to building subsidized housing for the decidedly unwealthy. – Kevin Ireton, editor of Fine Homebuilding

There is a kind of magic that creeps up on the reader. Abrams has written the memoir of one small place – the company – but the story keeps opening the readers mind to larger, even cosmic thoughts about the nature of life and experience, the conditions of our country. – William Greider, author of The Soul of Capitalism and Who Will Tell the People?

Part visionary business plan, part guide to democratizing the workplace, and part prescription for strong local economies, The Company We Keep marks the debut of an important new voice in American business. With a craftsman’s eye, a storyteller’s sensibility, and a CEO’s pragmatism, he brings his experience to bear on the challenges faced by progressive small businesses everywhere. Like Paul Hawken, Ray C. Anderson, and other socially responsible business leaders, Abrams explores the role of business in preserving and restoring local culture, social equity, and ecological balance.

Children’s / Ages 4-8 / War & Remembrance

America's White Table by Margot Raven Theis, illustrated by Mike Benny (Sleeping Bear Press)

The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional as to how they perceive the veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation. – General George Washington

The White Table is set in many halls as a symbol for and remembrance of service members fallen, missing, or held captive in the line of duty. Solitary and solemn, it is the table where no one will ever sit. For more than 30 years, this tradition, virtually unknown in the civilian world, has served in mess halls and at military events.

America's White Table describes one family's tradition of setting a white table for the absent guests at their annual Veterans Day dinner. In it Margot Raven Theis, professional writer of radio, television, magazines, newspapers and children’s books, with the help of award-winning photographer, Mike Benny, pays tribute to the men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country and those whose spirits live beyond the chains of their prisons. The author salutes them with the POW flag motto: You are not forgotten so long as there is one left in whom your memory remains.

As a special gift to her Uncle John, Katie and her sisters are asked to help set the white table for dinner. As their mother explains the significance of each item placed on the table, Katie comes to appreciate the depth of sacrifice that her uncle, and each member of the Armed Forces and their families, may be called to give. Crossing generational and political lines, the POW story of Uncle John is not based on any one particular story but rather, compiled from different service members’ acts of heroism during the Vietnam war to represent every branch of the military, and be a universal sign of brotherhood for all MIAs and POWs.

An outstanding work that presents a fairly ‘heavy’ topic so that youngsters can understand it. It's well-done and worth the read by any ‘kid,’ including us youngsters who are on social security. – Paul Galanti, Commander, United States Navy (Ret.) POW Vietnam , 1966-1973

It's hard for children to understand the suffering that adults sometimes must go through to protect our families and friends that make up America . This story, about a veteran that has not come home after a war, visually paints a picture that children can understand and will increase their appreciation for how expensive freedom is. – Leo Thorsness, Colonel, United States Air Force (Ret.) Medal of Honor recipient, POW Vietnam, 1967-1973

In time for Memorial Day, this thought-provoking and moving new children's book tackles tough time in American history: America's White Table tells a powerful story of remembrance...important for Americans of all ages. For children, this book is an important lesson in American history. For adults, this book may cause us to revisit an emotionally charged period of recent history and reexamine our own feelings and reactions. Artist Benny's intimate, detailed artwork gives a sense of meaning and shared experience.

Children’s / Humor

Mr. Tuggle's Trouble by LeeAnn Blankenship, illustrated by Karen Dugan (Boyd’s Mills Press)

Poor Mr. Tuggle is having a bad week.

Mr. Tuggle's Trouble was written by LeeAnn Blankenship, teacher and social worker in children’s services, foster care and adoption and illustrated by Karen Dugan, children’s books illustrator.

Mr. Tuggle’s troubles all begin on Monday, when he can't find his hat, which would have been mighty handy when that pigeon flew over his head. But the missing hat is just the start of Mr. Tuggle's week. From then on, each morning begins with the promise of a new day, and each day brings more trouble to Mr. Tuggle.

The troubles continue all week long, until on Thursday evening, when he sees his reflection in a window without hat, umbrella, shirt or shoes, and finally gets it: “Enough is enough,” he says, “I must find my missing things.”

LeeAnn Blankenship's comic tale Mr. Tuggle's Trouble features an endearing, Chaplinesque character, brought to life with madcap illustrations by Dugan. The book has a clear moral – ‘keep your things in order’ – an important lesson for children, humorously made.

Children’s / Science / 5 and up

Guts: Our Digestive System by Seymour Simon (Harper Collins Publishers)

• Why is it important to chew one’s food?

• How long it takes for food to travel through the body?

• Where does that bad-smelling gas come from?

The digestive system is out of sight and out of mind – until things don't go right. Then readers may wonder how these important organs work.

Young readers can find the answers in Seymour Simon's introduction to the digestive system Guts. Simon, recognized authority on presenting complex scientific topics to children, explains how the digestive system works twenty-four hours a day, turning pizza, sandwiches, milk, and other food into energy, nutrients and waste. Photographs on every spread show how major organs including the stomach and intestines move food through the body, and how, eventually, waste is eliminated.

Dozens of fascinating factoids can be found in Guts. Accompanying the text are nineteen full-color photographs of various parts of the digestive tract. Ranging from the microscopic view of a salivary gland to the wonderfully nauseating shot of a mucus covered esophagus, these pictures make it easy for readers to visualize what actually happens to their lunch.

Simon has done more than any other living author to help us understand and appreciate the beauty of our planet and our universe. – Kirkus Reviews

Large, detailed, breathtaking photos... students will find the book fascinating as well as a bit gross. – School Library Journal

In his signature style, accessible without being cute or condescending, he describes the complex facts and processes of the physiology, from the time food enters the mouth until all the various organs transform it into energy, nutrients, and waste. Some of the text is quite dense, but the clearly labeled, full-page color photos show the anatomy close-up, from an X-ray of the colon and a photo of a dissected pancreas to a microscopic view of what heartburn looks like in the stomach. … Readers older than the target audience may want to look at this, too. – Hazel Rochman, Booklist

Guts, with its striking photos and smooth, well-organized text, takes the mystery out of something that happens to everyone, every day, while at the same time sharing a sense of wonder about the human body. Young scientists will delight in learning all about the digestive system through Simon's scientific, yet accessible, writing style. Guts is a great supplementary source for classrooms, as well as the perfect tool for children to discover more about how their own bodies work.

Education

Instructional Methods for Secondary Students with Learning and Behavior Problems (3rd Edition) by Patrick J. Schloss, Maureen A. Smith, Cynthia N. Schloss (Allyn & Bacon)

Public education as conceived by the founders of this country has not fulfilled its promise for individuals with disabilities. Even so, according to Patrick and Cynthia Schloss, both of Bloomsburg University , and Cynthia Smith of Buffalo State College, public education has substantially improved the basic academic skills of individuals with disabilities. Children and youth previously excluded from academic programs and served only in custodial and compensatory programs are now progressing through elementary levels of mathematics, reading, and writing.

The problem is that a gap exists between the acquisition of basic academic skills and the application of these skills in work, leisure, and independent living. This gap results in part from excessive reliance on methods generalized from elementary-aged populations to secondary-aged learners. This over-reliance is exemplified by the frequent use of the term ‘disabled children’, where ‘children’ includes individuals at intermediate and secondary levels. It is also exemplified by curricula having a developmental orientation that overlooks the functional application of basic skills. Furthermore, it is exemplified by the lack of attention given to the special problems of adolescence and adulthood in special education methods courses.

Instructional Methods for Secondary Students with Learning and Behavior Problems was written to help fill this gap. It describes special education methods that are effective in promoting skills that may generalize to adult life. The book has an empirical orientation to special education. The basic teaching model described in the text can be used to evaluate learner characteristics, establish corresponding goals and objectives, imple­ment educational strategies that have been demonstrated to be effective in applied research literature, evaluate the impact of the procedures with the individual learner, and modify educational interventions when sufficient progress is not noted.

Instructional Methods for Secondary Students with Learning and Behavior Problems pays special attention to the following topics:

• Unique psychosocial problems of adolescents.
• Community resources available to young adults who have disabilities.
• Curriculum needs related to basic skill development and community integration.
• Special social and interpersonal skill training priorities of young adults who have disabilities.
• Post-secondary educational, leisure, vocational, and residential opportunities.
• Validated learning strategies for adolescents and young adults who have disabilities.
• Classroom management and motivational strategies that reflect the personal characteristics associated with adolescence.

The third edition of Instructional Methods for Secondary Students with Learning and Behavior Problems is organized into three main parts. The first deals with educational perspectives of instructional services for youth who have disabilities. The chapters in this part of the book focus on the legislative and social foundations of secondary and postsecondary education, postsecondary service options, and special problems associated with adolescence and adulthood.

Part Two examines general instructional approaches that are effective in teaching secondary-level learners who have disabilities. It opens with a discussion of three instructional models that illustrate how to provide instruction for youth with disabilities. It is followed by a discussion of assessment strategies that will ensure learner progress through instruction. The next chapter presents strategies for managing the learning environment. The concluding chapter of this part presents some consultative and resource functions of educators working with adolescents who have disabilities.

Part Three includes a description of special education methodologies at the secondary level and curricula within each of the major curricular areas. Each chapter reviews specific curriculum concerns, educational approaches, assessment procedures, and instructional materials. One of the main themes here is that curriculum objectives should be based on the skills of the learner and the functional demands of the community.

The methodology in each of the specific curricular areas is based on the general instructional strategies presented in the preceding chapters. The final chapters cover some traditional topics such as listening and speaking, written language, reading, mathematics, science, and social studies. Also covered are nontraditional curricular areas that are particularly appropriate for adolescents making the transition to adult life, including leisure skill training, vocational education, and interpersonal skill development.

Special features

• The chapters begin with cognitive competencies. These statements outline the scope of the information contained in the chapter.
• The chapters also begin with separate performance competencies. These statements identify specific strategies discussed in each chapter.
• Action plans occur throughout the chapters. They draw attention to performance by offering a step-by-step guide to implementing educational strategies.
• Cases for action provide an opportunity for readers to study and resolve hypothetical problems. They are typically open-ended vignettes that may be resolved through information contained in the text.
• Technical terms, necessary for an understanding of key concepts, are defined.

A textbook written to help fill the gap between the acquisition of basic academic skills and the application of these skills in work, leisure, and independent living. It describes special education methods that are effective in promoting skills that may generalize to adult life. The volume is divided into three parts: educational perspectives in secondary special education; general instructional approaches; and instruction in basic and functional skills. – Book News, Inc.

Instructional Methods for Secondary Students with Learning and Behavior Problems is unique in its focus on the special needs of intermediate- and secondary-aged learners. Upon completing the text, readers will be able to develop and implement educational programs suited to the special needs of adolescents and young adults who have disabilities. The distinctive features, especially the action plans and cases for action, enhance the value of Instructional Methods for Secondary Students with Learning and Behavior Problems as both a course text and a reference.

Education / Reading / Reference

Teaching and Learning Vocabulary: Bringing Research to Practice edited by Elfrieda H. Hiebert & Michael L. Kamil (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers)

Although proficiency in vocabulary has long been recognized as basic to reading proficiency, there has been a paucity of research on vocabulary in teaching and learning over the last two decades. Recognizing this, the U.S. Department of Education recently sponsored a Focus on Vocabulary conference that attracted the best-known and most active researchers in the vocabulary field. Teaching and Learning Vocabulary is the outgrowth of that conference. Edited by Elfrieda H. Hiebert, University of California , Berkeley and Michael L. Kamil, Stanford University , Teaching and Learning Vocabulary presents scientific evidence from leading research programs that address persistent issues regarding the role of vocabulary in text comprehension. Part I examines how vocabulary is learned; Part II presents instructional interventions that enhance vocabulary; and Part III looks at which words to choose for vocabulary instruction.

The authors identified scholars whose programs of research address one or more of these issues and were recognized by national panels and editorial boards of archival journals. Scholars were asked to summarize their findings, including studies that were ongoing, and to describe the implications of these findings for educators, policy makers and researchers. Many of the scholars consider the nature of vocabulary learning in relation to diversity that is present in many current-day classrooms. The editors report that the educational leaders who attended the forums were a compass for the editors in editing the volume and in designing their research programs.

Teaching and Learning Vocabulary addresses the full range of students populating current classrooms – young children, English Language Learners, and young adolescents.

By focusing on persistent issues from the perspective of critical school populations, this volume provides a rich, scientific foundation for effective vocabulary instruction and policy. In addition, few volumes can boast of a more luminous cast of contributing authors. Teaching and Learning Vocabulary is suitable for anyone (graduate students, in-service reading specialists and curriculum directors, college faculty, and researchers) who deal with vocabulary learning and instruction as a vital component of reading proficiency.

Environment / Social Sciences / Hispanic American Studies

Mexican Americans and the Environment: Tierra Y Vida by Devon G. Peñā (The Mexican American Experience Series: The University of Arizona Press)

Mexican Americans have traditionally had a strong land ethic, believing that humans must respect la tierra because it is the source of la vida. As modern market forces exploit the earth, communities struggle to control their own ecological futures, and several studies have recorded that Mexican Americans are more impacted by environmental injustices than are other national-origin groups. In our countryside, agricultural workers are poisoned by pesticides, while farmers have lost ancestral lands to expropriation. And in our polluted inner cities, toxic wastes sicken children in their playgrounds and homes.

Mexican Americans and the Environment explores the relationship between ecology and culture in the Mexican American experience, showing students its relevance in the context of environmental risks that affect all of us. Written by Devon G. Peña, professor of anthropology, environmental studies, and Chicano studies at the University of Washington , it addresses the struggle for environmental justice, grassroots democracy, and a sustainable society from a variety of Mexican American perspectives. The book draws on the ideas and experiences of people from all walks of life – activists, farmworkers, union organizers, land managers, educators, and others – who provide an overview of the ecological issues facing Mexican-origin people today.

Mexican Americans and the Environment is organized to first provide a general introduction to ecology, from both scientific and political perspectives. It then presents an environmental history for Mexican-origin people on both sides of the border, showing that the ecologically sustainable Norteño land use practices were eroded by the conquest of El Norte by the United States . It finally offers a critique of the principal schools of American environmentalism and introduces the organizations and struggles of Mexican Americans in contemporary ecological politics.  

Several studies have recorded that people of Mexican and Latin American descent are more impacted by environmental injustices than are African Americans, yet the literature and history of the environmental justice movement has struggled to give an account of this fact. Pena's book is a serious contribution to this crisis in the literature.... It will prove invaluable to the field of environmental justice studies generally, but more specifically to environmental studies, environmental geography, and environmental philosophy. – Robert M. Figueroa, Colgate University

Mexican Americans and the Environment is an environmental history on both sides of the border providing a clear overview of the most critical ecological issues facing Mexican Americans. Peña contrasts tenets of radical environmentalism with the ecological beliefs and grassroots struggles of Mexican-origin people, then shows how contemporary environmental justice struggles in Mexican American communities have challenged dominant concepts of environmentalism. Let’s hope the dominant paradigm takes a lesson from our growing minority.

Families & Parenting

What All Children Want Their Parents to Know: Twelve Keys to Successful Parenting by Diana Loomans, with Julia Godoy, with a foreword by Dr. Bernie Siegel (An H. J. Kramer Book, New World Library)

Missing manuals and nannies aside, there's hope for today's chronically challenged parent.

Parenting and education expert Diana Loomans is out to help today's harried parents connect with and lovingly raise their children in an increasingly hectic world. In What All Children Want Their Parents to Know, Loomans, speaker, bestselling author, journalist, and success coach, along with daughter and co-author, Julia Godoy, actor, author, poet, and artist, turn to children for the keys to successful and positive child rearing.

Focusing on 12 key childrearing lessons based on insight from children themselves, What All Children Want Their Parents to Know encourages moms and dads to do things like ‘teach by example’, ‘give appreciation and acknowledgement’, ‘allow room to grow and make mistakes’, and ‘practice true listening.’ Building on the introductory What All Children Want Their Parents to Know poem she wrote with her daughter, Loomans breaks the verse into short stanzas to outline the principles covered in each chapter. Each opens with a child's statement of what he or she needs and wants from a parent. Then, using examples from her personal experience, Loomans shows how each statement reflects an important parenting principle. Closing each chapter, parents are given playful, easy exercises designed to help them work the idea into their individual approach.

"There are basic positive parenting principles that your children want you to know – even if they don't express it the way you think they should," says Loomans, creator of The Laughing Classroom programs. Starting with the idea that a well-balanced adult has much more attention, energy, and love to share than an adult who is stressed, overworked, or overextended, Loomans maintains, "The image of using an oxygen mask on an airplane is fitting – only the adult who takes in enough oxygen first can be helpful to the young who are dependent on him or her for life support."

Full of wisdom and an excellent resource for perplexed parents who care. – Dr. Bernie Siegel, author of Love, Medicine and Miracles

Diana Loomans's work is inspired. She is one of the brilliant, relevant authors of our time! – Mark Victor Hansen, coauthor of The One Minute Millionaire and the Chicken Soup for the Soul series

What All Children Want Their Parents to Know is the ultimate nourishment for the family soul. Diana's wise insights and practical ideas will transform millions of families – she is a family coach extraordinaire! – Marci Shimoff, author of Chicken Soup for the Mother's Soul

Using the collective voice of children and to express the desires they most want the significant adults in their life to be aware of, What All Children Want Their Parents to Know is a perennial that parents will find themselves turning to time and time again to refresh and invigorate their parenting skills. Loomans makes learning seem casual and fun, and comes across less like an expert and more like a fellow parent sharing the wisdom she has gained through the everyday realities of raising children.

Health, Mind & Body / Christianity

A Resilient Life: You Can Move Ahead No Matter What by Gordon MacDonald (Nelson Books)

It makes little difference how fast you can run the 100 meters when the race is 400 meters long. Life is not a sprint; it is a distance run, and it demands the kind of conditioning that enables people to go the distance. – Gordon MacDonald

At a young age, Gordon MacDonald recognized that he had inherited a ‘quitter's gene,’ and because of this – and an influential track coach – he began a lifelong quest for answers. "Why," he asked himself, "do some people finish what they start, persevere in moments of adversity, push themselves in the direction of their potential, and often make their greatest contributions in the latter half of life? Why do others expect to retire from life when they reach their senior years?"

Veteran pastor and best-selling author MacDonald in A Resilient Life says readers must develop resilience – the courage and ability to get up when they fall, to keep running when they're bone-weary, and to keep their eye on the goal even in the murkiest moments. Using the backdrop of his own experiences as a champion runner, MacDonald demonstrates how resilient people practice spiritual self-discipline to build stamina and grit, know what's up ahead, what obstacles they will likely face, and bond with special friends who share their commitment to finishing well.

Using examples from the Bible, from his own life, and from the lives of contemporary people, MacDonald, who is now editor-at-large for Leadership journal and chairman of World Relief, identifies the characteristics of resilience, leading readers through the self-assessment needed to develop them. The journey is demanding and humbling, he reminds readers, but the rewards of living well are immeasurable.

MacDonald offers sage advice to Christians in middle age and beyond, asserting that the greatest contributions God has for believers come during the second half of life. The prolific author and pastor tells how a high school track coach instilled values that laid the foundations for effective adult living.…Those who nurture a big-picture view of life, he says, leave the weight of the past behind, discipline themselves to go the distance and run with a ‘happy few’ who best embody the truest expression of lasting friendship. MacDonald's guide to embracing resiliency is especially practical as he describes running the entire life race with gusto, urging fellow Christians to enlarge their minds, harness their emotions and trim their egos. With a passionate yet humble voice, MacDonald's self-help guide is a classic, riveting read. – Publishers Weekly (starred review)

In A Resilient Life, MacDonald shows readers how to develop resilience – the mental and spiritual ruggedness that can keep them running strong, day upon day. Because he has also run many long, punishing laps in the tough race of life, MacDonald is uniquely qualified to coach and encourage readers in developing that resilient spirit – to weather adversity, to finish what they start, and to never be satisfied with anything short of God's best for them.

Health, Mind & Body / Psychology & Counseling

Understanding and Treating the Aggression of Children: Fawns in Gorilla Suits by David A. Crenshaw & John Mordock (Jason Aronson)

A Handbook of Play Therapy with Aggressive Children by David A. Crenshaw & John Mordock (Jason Aronson)

Two authors with a combined experience of over 50 years in the residential treatment of severely aggressive and traumatized children, David Crenshaw, Ph.D., founding director of Rhinebeck Child and Family Center in Rhinebeck, New York and John Mordock, Ph.D., ABPP, retired director of community mental health programs of the Astor Home for Children, have written two empathic books on working with aggressive children which can be read as a set or separately.

Understanding and Treating the Aggression of Children provides a thorough review of the theoretical and research basis of the techniques and interventions in the treatment of aggressive and sometimes violent children. This is not a dry and sterile academic review but rather one that comes from work directly in the therapy room with thousands of hurting and traumatized children. Early on, Crenshaw and Mordock introduce the  metaphor of the fawn in a gorilla suit, followed by chapters covering developmental failures and invisible wounds, profound and unacknowledged losses, the implication of new findings from neuroscience, psychodynamics of aggressive children, risk factors when treating the traumatized child, special considerations when treating children in foster care, strengthening relationships with parents and helping them be more effective, enhancing relationships with direct care and instructional staff, developing mature defenses, and coping skills, creating a therapeutic milieu for traumatized children, and fostering hope and resilience.

Understanding and Treating the Aggression of Children is a splendid and important addition to the clinical literature in this vital, yet relatively neglected, domain of child therapy. Its excellence lies in its lucid and concise depiction of the ingredients that go into the 'creation' of such children and its forthright yet subtle ideas as to 'how to best treat them.' It beautifully depicts how the insidious 'unholy trinity' of loss, voicelessness, and shame combine to create the 'fawn-like' underlying personality structure of these children. …This book should be in the library of any child clinician working with seriously troubled youngsters – it is engagingly written, compellingly astute, and unstintingly helpful in its approach. – Steve Tuber, Ph.D., City University of New York at City College

This first of two volumes is a comprehensive A to Z guide for clinicians who work with aggressive and violent children. It covers a wealth of information from understanding the underlying causes through developmental failures and recent findings from neuroscience, along with psychodynamic formulations on through to special considerations to treatment and working with parents. The authors close with a chapter on fostering hope and resilience that gives us all hope in working with such a difficult population. This book makes an important contribution to the field of child therapy and needs to be included in professional and personal libraries. – Athena A. Drewes, Psy.D., RPT-S, The Astor Home for Children

The second book, also by Crenshaw and Mordock, focuses on the use of play therapy in treating these children. A Handbook of Play Therapy with Aggressive Children is the most comprehensive and detailed compilation of specific and practical techniques available for child and play therapists to draw on in the treatment of aggressive children. The chapters cover the nuts and bolts of play therapy with this extremely challenging clinical population, including the therapeutic alliance, aims of play therapy with aggressive children, setting limits on destructive, and obtrusive behaviors, typical play themes of aggressive children, developing distancing and displacement through playful actions and through teaching, modeling, and structuring action play. Other chapters cover: creating more mature defenses and calming strategies, the role of interpretation, elementary and advanced concepts; spontaneous drawings as a bridge to fantasy play, specific drawing techniques to create access to the inner world of children, teaching and modeling pro-social skills with special emphasis on empathy, teaching the language of feelings, facilitating affect expression and modulation, facilitating contained reenactment of trauma, helping children to mourn tangible as well as intangible, unacknowledged and invisible losses. Later chapters cover: the therapeutic process and techniques to facilitate termination. The Crenshaw and Mordock introduce the ‘Play Therapy Decision Grid’, which is a creative and original way to guide the therapist into the levels of therapy best suited for the child at any given point based on the child's resources and the anxiety engendered by the therapy.

A treasure chest of ideas for healing the psychic wounds of aggressive, latency-age children. Highly recommended. – Charles E. Schaefer, Ph.D., director emeritus, Association for Play Therapy

Dr. David Crenshaw and Dr. John Mordock have written an extremely informative handbook for child and play therapists where anger and aggression are the major presenting problems. As therapists, we are seeing more and more children where these dynamics exist. This book is filled with practical case examples that directly address therapeutic interactions with these children that the authors have termed 'fawns in gorilla suits.' These authors are obviously two very gifted, sensitive clinicians who offer many years of experience to therapists who are confronted with the aggressive child. This book is a definite 'must' for all clinicians who work with the aggressive child. – Lois Carey, MSW, BCD, RPT-S , New York Association for Play Therapy

A 'must-have' addition to any professional or personal library. – Athena A. Drewes, Psy.D., RPT-S, director of clinical training, Astor Home for Children

One cannot read Understanding and Treating the Aggression of Children without being deeply moved and touched by the pain of these children and yet also be buoyed by their courage and willingness to persevere against formidable barriers. This book, together with A Handbook of Play Therapy with Aggressive Children, will be invaluable to new as well as seasoned child practitioners because of the broad range of the interventions and the clear rationale that guides their use.

Health, Mind & Body / Psychology & Counseling

The Broken Mirror: Understanding and Treating Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Revised and Expanded Edition by Katharine A. Phillips M.D. ( Oxford University Press)

When do normal concerns about one's appearance become an obsession?

Jane is an attractive woman in her mid-thirties, tall, thin, and stately. She believes she is breathtakingly ugly. Tormented by what she sees as her huge nose, crooked lip, big jaw, fat buttocks, and tiny breasts, she has not left her house in six years. Though she lives in the same house as her mother, she once went two years without seeing her. When relatives come over, she avoids them, staying up on the third floor of the house, even on Thanksgiving. The one time she left the house – forced to see a doctor – she covered her face with bandages. Eventually, she attempted suicide. “I can't imagine any suffering greater than this. If I had a choice, I'd rather be blind or have my arms cut off. I'd be happy to have cancer.”

Jane has body dysmorphic disorder, or BDD. In The Broken Mirror, Dr. Katharine Phillips draws on years of clinical practice and detailed interviews with patients to bring readers the first book on this debilitating disease, in which sufferers are obsessed by perceived flaws in their appearance. Phillips describes severe cases, such as Jane's, but also a multitude of milder cases, such as Carl, a successful lawyer who uses his work to distract him from his supposedly thinning hair, yet says that he thinks about it constantly. Many sufferers are able to function well in society, but remain secretly obsessed by their ‘hideous acne’ or ‘horrible nose,’ sneaking constant peeks at a pocket mirror, or spend hours at a time redoing makeup. According to Phillips' research, BDD afflicts approximately 2% of the population, or nearly 5 million people. It is not an uncommon disorder, simply a hidden one, since sufferers are often embarrassed to tell even their closest friends about their concerns: one woman, after fifty years of marriage, still felt too uncomfortable to reveal her preoccupation to her husband.

Left untreated, BDD can lead to psychiatric hospitalization and sometimes suicide. With treatment, many sufferers are able to lead normal lives. Phillips, director of the Body Dysmorphic Disorder and Body Image Program at Butler Hospital in Providence , Rhode Island , and professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown Medical School , provides a quick self-assessment questionnaire, helping readers distinguish between normal concern with appearance and the obsession of BDD to determine whether they or someone they know has BDD. She includes warning signs for dermatologists and plastic surgeons, since they are the medical professionals who see BDD sufferers most often as they continually seek to ‘fix’ their looks. Other chapters outline effective treatments for BDD using drugs and cognitive-behavioral therapy, answering often-asked questions about treatments. Finally, Phillips includes a chapter aimed at the friends and families of BDD sufferers.

This revised and expanded edition of The Broken Mirror provides updated information from recent research that sheds new light on this serious illness. Like the original, this edition draws on Phillips' years of clinical practice and scientific research, including professional evaluations of approximately 900 individuals with BDD. This edition also includes four indispensable, updated chapters that provide the latest information on treatment of BDD – including treatments that should be avoided – and give detailed advice for family members and friends on how to cope with the disorder.

An important and seminal work. It breaks new ground. – Robert M.A. Hirschfeld, M.D., University of Texas

Dr. Phillips' book is a landmark in the recognition and treatment of imagined ugliness. This book, beautifully written, provides a great deal of hope for patients with body dysmorphic disorder and their family members and should help speed recovery for countless sufferers of this common, fas­cinating, and disabling illness. – Eric Hollander, M.D., Mount Sinai Medical Center

… If one thinks that BDD might simply be a new age coinage for vanity, Phillips makes a convincing case for taking a second look by drawing on years of clinical practice, research, and patient interviews. The evidence demonstrates that the obsession often causes sufferers to attempt suicide or become house bound and can be linked to eating disorders and depression. Suggesting new treatment methods (therapy, Prozac) and methods of assessing BDD, Phillips legitimizes a serious malady that many sufferers keep secret. – Book News

The revised and expanded edition of The Broken Mirror is the most comprehensive book on BDD and is written by the leading expert on this disorder. The Broken Mirror is essential reading for the psychiatrists, mental health professionals, and other physicians who see these often undiagnosed patients; for the friends and family concerned and upset by a loved one who won't believe their reassurances; and for the millions who suffer from BDD in silence and secrecy. Besides the fascinating story of the disease itself, The Broken Mirror is also a literally lifesaving handbook for sufferers, their families, and their doctors. Family members, profoundly affected by the disease themselves, will find both helpful advice and reassurance in this indispensable book.

Health, Mind & Body / Psychology & Counseling

Emotional Storm by Michael Eigen ( Wesleyan University Press)

When two personalities meet, an emotional storm is created. – W. R. Bion

We cannot avoid these storms, and this could be for the best. Although human relationships can cause feelings of fulfillment and comfort, they can also cause feelings of suffocation and rage. Our bonds with others are often forged through conflict, and such conflict should be embraced, according to Michael Eigen, who is in private practice in New York and Associate Clinical Professor of Psychology at New York University .

In his new book, Emotional Storm, Eigen discusses how the storms of life are integral to our humanity. The birth of a child disrupts a couple's emotional harmony. Labor and delivery pain the mother. Sons can threaten a father's relationship with the mother. And fathers can hurt daughters by giving sexual bear hugs. But even with such potential emotional storms, children need parents to survive and adults can enrich their lives with children. As Eigen puts it, "We try to free ourselves from, as well as enjoy, each other's desires. We need each other's desires to grow, but feel stifled by their impositions."

When one avoids emotional storms, denying chances to work out conflict, they may find other outlets to vent their pain and frustrations. Addictions and violence are common outcomes for those who have not faced the conflicts in their personal relationships. These outcomes effect more than the individual – they affect society at large. "You can't stop the world from being dangerous," Eigen says. But we can learn to cope with danger by slowing down and acknowledging emotional conflict. Such conflicts chisel away at our smugness and pride, and cause us to question our own beliefs and actions. Resolving these conflicts bring about a renewed faith in the value of human relationships and the human capacity for empathy.

Eigen's latest work is an X-ray of the emotional underbelly of our contemporary world. A passionately moral work written with searing honesty, exemplary self-reflectiveness, and a respect for human complexity. – Jeffrey Rubin, author of The Good Life

Emotional Storm is a remarkable work, a tour de force. Eigen has lucidly, articulately, and eloquently put into unforgettable prose some of the most important clinical themes in contemporary psychoanalysis. – James S. Grotstein, Professor of Psychiatry, UCLA School of Medicine

The prolific writer of eight previous books,… Eigen believes in trauma's creative force, that the darkest parts of our experience and selves, if accepted and held, rather than avoided, can open us up and lead to rebirth. … Dedicated to "storm survivors, storm transformers and those who live and work in storm's heart," Eigen's latest work succeeds as a spiritual probe, a book to dip into if one is inclined toward complex, deepening journeys. – Publishers Weekly

Emotional Storm is psychoanalyst Eigen's provocative, profound and illuminating new work. In the tradition of Martin Buber, Eigen explores the broad spectrum of emotions we experience in our relationships with others, from feelings of longing and fulfillment to starvation, suffocation, and blind rage. Weaving case studies and psychoanalytic theory into an integrated, complex understanding, Eigen shows us how the storms of life are critical to our human bond, integral to our humanity, and instrumental to our growth and development.

Health, Mind & Body / Psychology & Counseling

Notes from the Margins: The Gay Analyst’s Subjectivity in the Traditional Setting by Eric Sherman (Bending Psychoanalysis Series, Volume 3: The Analytic Press, Inc., Publishers)

Much has been written about the impact of gender and sexual orientation on the intersubjective field. Yet remarkably little has been written about the unique dilemmas faced by gay clinicians who treat patients of different genders and sexual orientations. Given the particularities of growing up gay in our culture, issues of secrecy, shame, alienation, difference, and internalized homophobia necessarily enter into any gay therapist’s developmental history. These factors have a shaping impact on the gay analyst’s sensibility, on the way he learns to listen to his patients.

In Notes from the Margins, Eric Sherman, faculty member and supervisor at both the National Institute for the Psychotherapies, NYC and the Contemporary Center for Advanced Psychoanalytic Studies at Farleigh Dickinson University , reveals a wide range of subjective reactions to eight different patients. In detailed clinical vignettes that highlight his thoughts, feelings, personal history, and counter-transference struggles, he conveys the experiential immediacy of working as an analyst – as a gay analyst.
Notes from the Margins is meant to defy one's usual expectations of a psychoanalytic text. The book's purpose, its format, even the way it came into being – nothing about it is traditional. It was conceived when Jack Drescher, editor of TAP's Bending Psychoanalysis series, invited Sherman to do a book about what it is really like to work as a gay psychoanalyst. Toward that end, Sherman would have to be willing to open up and show his work in all its messiness and allow himself to be vulnerable before the entire analytic community.

Sherman says he felt compelled to take on the project – in the last few years, two formerly overlooked and seemingly unrelated currents have captured the attention of contemporary psychoanalysts: (1) The importance of the analyst's subjectivity as it shapes the therapeutic interaction, and (2) The role, in treatment, of patient's and therapist's gender and sexual orientation. Yet, even as books and journal articles have explored these trends, two vital areas have been largely ignored – areas that Notes from the Margins addresses.

First, little has been written about the unique dilemmas homo­sexual clinicians face when seeing patients of different genders and sexual orientations, especially gay analysts' most intimate counter-transference responses. Second, too many articles, even those written within the author’s relational perspective, treat the analyst's counter-transference as a neat and seamless variable. Counter-transference is usually presented as a feeling or attitude that the therapist can easily reflect on and overcome with just the right intervention, even in the heat of tense moments. While this may sometimes be the case, few articles or books capture the more common and intense struggles all therapists face. Often left out is how our very humanness – our backgrounds, personalities, morals, and the personal meanings of our sexual orientation and gender – can confound, torment, and even misguide us. As a result, many working psychoanalysts may feel ashamed, inadequate, or foolish about their ‘imperfect’ work. More troubling is that many students of psychoanalysis are given the erroneous impression that a day may eventually come when they will be free of their counter-transferences – or that they can entirely master them.

Notes from the Margins is an attempt to correct those impressions by providing a glimpse of a gay analyst's unique subjectivity in the clinical setting. Certainly, all therapists' subjectivities are shaped by their sexual orientation and sense of gender. However, when the therapist is gay, and his history is replete with issues of secrecy, shame, alienation, difference, and internalized homophobia, he inevitably brings a unique way of listening to his patients. By presenting detailed clinical vignettes that highlight Sherman ’s thoughts, feelings, personal history, and counter-transference struggles with different patients, he offers a glimpse inside the workings of the analyst's mind.

As for the format of Notes from the Margins, theoretical and clinical material are presented separately. Chapters 3 through 9 are each devoted to telling a compelling case history, filled with action and unencumbered by immediate theoretical discussion. The clinical cases are book-ended by two chapters (2 and 10) that provide the theoretical underpinnings that inform my work.

Chapter 2 begins with an examination of the role of counter-transference, starting from Freud, and then focusing on contemporary models of psychoanalysis. How therapists understand and use their counter-transference is crucial to the outcome of any treatment in the relational model. By being in touch with their own feelings toward a patient, therapists develop a unique understanding of the patient's complementary feelings. In this way of working, enactments are inevitable and even welcome. They provide a distinctive glimpse inside the patient's internal world, as well as into the intersubjective field cocreated by patient and therapist.

In chapter 3, the first clinical account, for example, Sherman presents his work with Jose, a gay man whose effeminacy evoked discomfort and homophobia in him. The more Jose lisped and fluttered his hands as he spoke, the more distant and judgmental Sherman says he became. As an effeminate older man, he was everything Sherman was afraid being gay meant when he first began his own coming-out process. It was not until Jose challenged Sherman during a particularly meaningful enactment that he could see just how painful – and familiar – his distancing had become for him. Sherman ’s working through his fears of being like Jose was a turning point in the treatment.

Chapter 4 highlights Sherman ’s work with Rich, an insecure straight man whose aggressive posturing was in stark contrast to Jose's ‘fluttery’ effeminacy. Chapter 5 introduces the theme of sexual excitement by presenting two cases of erotic counter-transference with heterosexual pa­tients. In chapter 6, Sherman ’s fantasies about being a loving heterosexual father embroiled him in an enactment with a new mother who brought her baby to session for seven months. In chapter 7, Sherman present his work with a middle-aged gay virgin. Chapter 8 finds Sherman feeling aroused by a photograph a gay patient brought in of himself in a bathing suit. Chapter 9 also touches on Sherman ’s sexual excitement, this time for a gay man who enacted with him his domination and submission fantasies.

Notes from the Margins’s final chapter discusses specific dilemmas that the gay analyst faces in working with heterosexual and homosexual clients alike; it puts into context the clinical chapters that precede it. Sherman examines how the gay analyst is not immune from feelings of internalized homophobia that come from growing up in a society in which being gay means one is saddled with a sense of difference and shame. How he struggles with these feelings makes all the difference between deepening the therapy and getting stuck in an impasse.

Sherman is a sensitive clinician, courageous in the candor with which he shares his own experience of the therapeutic relationship. His clear-eyed honesty and gifted narrative style take you into the office with him and his patients; there he shares his own feelings in the delicate and profound human contact that is the therapeutic encounter. Notes from the Margins is a gem, compact enough to be read in one sitting but comprehensive enough to be on my short list of books to recommend to students as well as seasoned colleagues. – Ralph Roughton, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Emory University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences; Training and Supervising Analyst, Emory University Psychoanalytic Institute

Notes from the Margins is not only an illuminating overview of the special challenges faced by gay and lesbian analysts, but a window to grasping the messy realities intrinsic in the psychotherapeutic process. Although Sherman is not the first author to write thoughtfully about working in the counter-transference, he is among the few to portray analytic work, particularly in the working through of enactments, as an untidy affair, marked not only by success but also by the blind spots and insecurities that contribute to failure. In presenting these cases, readers get a real sense for how Sherman understands and works with his subjectivity as it intermingles with that of the patient.

Sherman has made Notes from the Margins accessible to all readers, regardless of their sexual orientation. Every analyst – gay, bi­sexual, or straight – struggles with issues around shame and guilt, hiding and being seen, and Notes from the Margins not only gives therapists permission to have these feelings, it shows them how to utilize them in the treatment. This glimpse inside Sherman ’s consultation room is sure to stimulate discussion, self-reflection, and even criticism. By sharing his process, readers may feel freer to do the same.

Health, Mind & Body / Psychology & Counseling / Behavioral Sciences

Learning and Behavior (6th Edition) by James E. Mazur (Prentice Hall) is a comprehensive survey describing the basic principles, theories, controversies, and experiments in the field of learning.

Focusing on both classic studies and the most recent developments and trends, Learning and Behavior deals with how people and animals learn, and how learning impacts behaviors. The emphasis throughout is on the importance of learning principles in everyday life.

James E. Mazur's text examines how learning takes place everywhere, by animals of all species and people of all ages. Introducing students to key research from the field, Mazur, professor at Southern Connecticut State University, uses pedagogical tools to help readers comprehend and apply the material. Learning and Behavior introduces readers to the branch of psychology that deals with how people and animals learn and how their behaviors are later changed as a result of this learning. This is a broad topic, for nearly all of our behaviors are influenced by prior learning experiences in some way. Because examples of learning and learned behaviors are so numerous, the goal of most psychologists in this field has been to discover general principles that are applicable to many different species and many different learning situations. Learning and Behavior describes some of the most important principles, theories, controversies, and experiments that have been produced by this branch of psychology in its first century.

Learning and Behavior is designed to be suitable for introductory or intermediate level courses in learning, conditioning, or the experimental analysis of behavior. No prior knowledge of psychology is assumed, but the reading will be easier for those who have had a course in introductory psychology. Many of the concepts and theories in this field are fairly abstract, and to make them more concrete and more relevant, Mazur has included many real-world examples and analogies. In addition, most of the chapters include sections that describe how the theories and principles have been used in the applied field of behavior modification.

Chapter topics include classical conditioning, operant conditioning, avoidance and punishment, theories and research on operant conditioning, stimulus control and concept formation, learning by observation, and much more. Roughly speaking, Learning and Behavior proceeds from the simple to the complex, both with respect to the difficulty of the material and the types of learning that are discussed. Chapter 1 discusses the nature of scientific theories and experiments, and it outlines the behavioral approach to learning and contrasts it with the cognitive approach. Chapter 2 first describes some of the earliest theories about the learning process; then it presents some basic findings about the physiological mechanisms of learning. Chapter 3 discusses innate behaviors and the simplest type of learning, habituation. Many of the terms and ideas introduced here reappear in later chapters on classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and motor-skills learning.

The next two chapters deal with classical conditioning. Chapter 4 begins with basic principles and ends with some therapeutic applications. Chapter 5 describes more recent theoretical developments and experimental findings in this area. The next three chapters discuss the various facets of operant conditioning: Chapter 6 covers the basic principles and terminology of positive reinforcement, Chapter 7 covers schedules of reinforcement and applications, and Chapter 8 covers negative reinforcement and punishment. Chapters 9 and 10 have a more theoretical ori­entation. Chapter 9 presents differing views on such fundamental questions as what constitutes a reinforcer and what conditions are necessary for learning to occur. Chapter 10 takes a more thorough look at generalization and discrimination than was possible in earlier chapters, and it also examines research on concept formation.

Chapter 11 surveys a wide range of findings in the rapidly growing area of comparative cogni­tion. Chapters 12 and 13 discuss two types of learning that are given little or no emphasis in many texts on learning – observational learning and motor-skills learning. These chapters are included because a substantial portion of human learning involves either observation or the development of new motor skills. Readers might well be puzzled or disappointed (with some justification) with a text on learning that includes no mention of these topics. Finally, Chapter 14 presents an overview of behavioral research on choice.

This sixth edition includes a number of changes, both to help students learn the material and to keep the information up to date. Each chapter now begins with a set of learning objectives to help students identify the main concepts they should learn in each chapter. In addition, two practice quizzes are included in each chapter so students can test themselves and see how well they have mastered the main points of the preceding sections. This edition is also updated with new studies that reflect recent developments in the field.

Supplements accompanying Learning and Behavior:

• Instructor's Manual with Test Questions
• Computerized Test Bank
• PowerPoint slides available online
• Students can access online study tools at the text Companion Website
• E-Text is available at a deep discount online.

Widely acclaimed for its thoroughness and clarity, this contemporary survey of the field of learning offers comprehensive coverage of both classic studies and the most recent developments and trends – with an emphasis on the importance of learning principles in everyday life. Many real-world examples and analogies make the often abstract concepts and theories of the field more concrete and relevant, and most chapters include sections that describe how the theories and principles have been used in the applied field of behavior modification. And this edition still has the clear and engaging writing still for which Mazur is known.

Learning and Behavior is targeted at individuals with an interest in psychology – especially learning, conditioning, and the experimental analysis of behavior.

History / Americas / Civil War

Richmond's Wartime Hospitals by Rebecca Barbour Calcutt (Pelican Publishing Company) is an in-depth study of medical care during the Civil War.

Almost every comfort we have nowadays in nursing was absent from the beginning and towards the last the hospitals were unspeakably lacking in needfuls. – Volunteer Nurse at Winder Hospital

While medical science enjoyed several advances during the Civil War, the doctors and hospitals in the Southern states faced overwhelming casualties with few supplies and inadequate personnel. By focusing on facilities in Virginia ’s capitol, Rebecca Barbour Calcutt in Richmond's Wartime Hospitals illustrates how exhausted resources defeated the doctors’ efforts.
Doctors attempting to deal with the carnage wrought by the Civil War faced more difficult challenges than the sheer number of the wounded. Fought at the very end of what is now known as "the medical Middle Ages," the Civil War predated modern knowledge of bacteria and antiseptics. Doctors, who were then deemed fully trained after only a two-year course of study, had few diagnostic tools at hand beyond their own reckoning.

Calcutt, who is both an historian and a registered nurse, has served as a docent for the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History and a licensed tour guide for both the city of Charleston and Middleton Place Plantation in Richmond .

Richmond's Wartime Hospitals illustrates how exhausted resources rapidly defeated Southern doctors' heroic efforts. The book covers more than fifty hospitals located in Richmond , Virginia ’s capital, during the Civil War period, including each facility's location, dates of operation, and surgeon-in-charge. This thoroughly researched study includes staff records and other archival material. Where archival information was available, Calcutt includes detailed descriptions of the buildings, first-person accounts of day-to-day operations, and other historical anecdotes, making the book particularly fascinating in its depth to arm-chair Civil War specialists.

History / Americas

Las Vegas: A Centennial History by Eugene P. Moehring & Michael S. Green (Wilbur S. Shepperson Series in Nevada History: University of Nevada Press)

Las Vegas is many things to many people.

The meteoric rise of Las Vegas from a remote Mormon outpost to an international entertainment center with a sprawling metropolitan area of well over a million people was never a sure thing. In its first decades, the town languished, but when Nevada legalized casino gambling in 1931, Las Vegas met its destiny.

Las Vegas celebrates the city's unparalleled growth in the brief century of its existence. The book, written by Eugene P. Moehring, professor of history at the University of Nevada , and Michael S. Green, professor of history at the Community College of Southern Nevada , examines both the development of its gaming industry and the creation of an urban complex that over a million people proudly call home. Here are the colorful characters who shaped the city as well as the political, business, and civic decisions that influenced its growth. The story extends chronologically from the first Paiute people right up to the construction of the latest mega-resort, and geographically far beyond the original township to include the several municipalities that make up today's vast metropolitan Las Vegas area.

Las Vegas has become an icon of gambling and leisure, attracting more than 35 million visitors annually, more than Orlando , more even than Mecca in Saudi Arabia . To most of these visitors, it is ‘Sin City,’ the ‘City without Clocks,’ where ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.’To the people who live here – over 1.7 million of them according to the 2000 census, and more arriving every day – the metropolitan Las Vegas area is where they work, raise families, go to school, and dream the same dreams and live the same lives as their fellow Americans all over the country. That the city's major industry involves an attitude unappreciated by puritans of all stripes – the pursuit of pleasure in all its forms – does not contradict the fact that the majority of Las Vegans earn their living in ordinary workplaces like offices, shops, and construction sites, and in the same vast range of occupations and professions that other Americans pursue.

Las Vegas commemorates the centennial the establishment of Las Vegas – by chronicling, analyzing, and celebrating the city in all its diversity and paradox, and by describing how the city's residents effected its dramatic transformation in less than a century. Moehring and Green look at more than the Strip, which is a recent phenomenon – its first hotel, the El Rancho Vegas, opened on April 3, 1941 – and technically is not even in the City of Las Vegas , which stops at Sahara Avenue , where the Strip begins. Federal intervention in the 1930s, along with the happy combination of geology, geography, and technology, made Las Vegas the national gateway to Boulder Dam. This project, with its infusion of federal money, supplies, and workers from all over the country, plus the interest the project created, began to shift the little town's economy slowly toward tourism.

World War II completed the process. Federal spending was again crucial to the city. The construction of a giant magnesium plant and the instant suburb of Henderson , the establishment of an army gunnery school near what later became North Las Vegas , and the creation of numerous military bases and defense plants in neighboring California and Ari­zona began to flood the growing casino center on Fremont Street with vis­itors. During the war, Las Vegans increasingly realized that tourism and gambling, not railroading, would be their salvation. Additional stimulus for growth came from federal defense spending during the cold war, especially at Nellis and the Nevada Test Site.

In Las Vegas, Moehring and Green trace the development of Las Vegas 's twin gambling centers on the Strip and downtown. They also explain why the Strip never joined the city, and why the Strip eventually grew larger than the city that inspired it. The book covers all the major events in the city's history, including the more recent ones like the housing boom in master-planned communities, the Disneyfied architecture of the Strip's newest resorts, and Mayor Oscar Goodman's plans to diversify downtown's economy. It also offers material with which many are less familiar, such as a discussion of the Ku Klux Klan's presence in Las Vegas during the 1920s and 1930s, and provides a frank and detailed account of the battle for civil rights in both the community and the gaming industry, in a city whose rigid and restrictive racial policies made it known for many years as ‘the Mississippi of the West.’

Las Vegas not only provides an account of metropolitan development; it also engages in some policy analysis to show that many of the issues that residents grapple with today have deep historical roots in the community. For example, it shows that growth has always been expen­sive in Las Vegas . In every decade after 1930, residents recognized that population growth was welcome, but it was also expensive, requiring frequent bond issues to finance new streets, sewers, water lines, schools, libraries, and other infrastructural improvements. The book examines the political fragmentation of the metropolitan area into three cities (four, counting Boulder City ) and one county with multiple police and fire departments and explains why, for historical reasons, this wasteful situation will probably never change.

Las Vegas tells both stories – the story of the flamboyant people, shrewd businessmen-gamblers, and colorful industry that built the Strip and its worldwide reputation as ‘ Sin City ,’ and the story of the metropolitan area around it that grew parallel to and partly because of the success of gambling and entertainment. As the city enters its centennial year and celebrates its prodigious growth in the breathtakingly brief span of a single century, the book explains why and how Las Vegas accomplished this growth and how it got to be the way it is today.

Las Vegas offers fresh insight into the process of city building in the American West, where urban needs and aspirations must contend with water scarcity, isolation, erratic economies, highly diverse populations, and the rocky relationship between the need for civic order and the Western spirit of independence.

History / Americas

When in Boston: A Time Line & Almanac by Jim Vrabel (Northeastern University Press)

Ever wondered about whether Captain Kidd actually turned up in the Bay State ?

…or when the Great Fires or the Molasses Flood occurred?

Curious who how the Green Dragon, Doyle’s, and the Warren Tavern became such notable pubs and meeting places?

The answers to these and countless other questions can be found in When in Boston, a colorful history of the Hub.

Arranged on a timeline, with an extensive bibliography, thorough index, and abundant illustrations, When in Boston is a long overdue, single-volume chronicle of Boston over the centuries. Jim Vrabel, Senior Research Analyst and Editor at the Boston Redevelopment Authority, delves into the most significant, entertaining, and unusual events in Boston history, in categories ranging from population, planning, and development, to politics, religion, and social change, to education, the arts, and sports. Information is drawn from the canon of books on Boston history, media sources, neighborhood historical associations, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Boston Athenaeum, and the Boston Public Library, as well as the Bostonian Society. Readers revisit Boston's most intriguing people, places, and events, from the Algonquin Indians, to the African American Meeting House and Bulfinch’s State House, to the Swan Boats, Blinstrub’s, Cheers, Fenway Park, and the Zakim-Bunker Hill Bridge, to Josiah Quincy, Martin Lomasney, Louise Day Hicks, and Tom Menino.

Anyone who cares about Boston is going to wear out this book – so buy at least two copies! I predict that it will become a fixture in every library, school, and tavern in the town, so that whenever a dispute about our history arises someone will declare: "Nuff said. Let's look at When in Boston.” – William M. Fowler, Jr., Director, Massachusetts Historical Society

When in Boston is a breathtaking sweep of Boston 's history. In addition to being educational, the inclusion of offbeat happenings makes it refreshing and entertaining. From the year 1000 to the 21st century, the rich, unique social and political history of the ‘City upon a Hill’ evolves. And what an evolution! You cannot read this time line and almanac without becoming fired-up to reach for a biography or history book to plumb the depths beneath the facts presented here. Jim Vrabel has hit a home run. – Hubie Jones, Dean Emeritus, Boston University School of Social Work

When in Boston is a must-have for any Boston historian, librarian, or collector – and many other writers researching Boston history will use When in Boston as the starting point in their reference toolbox. – Ken Gloss, Proprietor, Brattle Book Shop

When in Boston, the only comprehensive and up-to-date compilation of its kind, provides a unique descriptive history of the city. As authoritative as it is user friendly, the book will prove an indispensable and handy tool for researchers, professionals, history buffs, residents, and tourists alike.

History / Americas

Men Against Granite by Mari Tomasi & Roaldus Richmond, edited by Alfred Rosa & Mark Wanner (The New England Press)

In the 1930s the WPA’s Federal Writers’ Project hired authors across America to interview people from all walks of life. In Vermont , writers Maui Tomasi and Roaldus Richmond recorded the life stories of over one hundred Barre area residents, nearly all of whom had some connection to the granite industry. In the early decades of the twentieth century, quarrying and carving Barre stone was the lifeblood of the local economy, providing many with an income, but often at a fearsome cost: the health and even the lives of many workers.

Men Against Granite presents fifty-two stories, bringing to life the voices of a long-gone era. In it readers meet an operatic cast of characters ranging front the mayor to an itinerant peddler, from a lumber baron to a boarding house matron, as well as many stone workers, or their widows. They hear of family births and deaths, of the rise and fall of the granite industry, of carving stone and escaping the stonesheds, of the immigrant's life in Vermont and of families left behind in the Old Country.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, Barre was the self-proclaimed ‘Granite Capital of the World’ and a true melting pot of ethnicities and cultures. The very qualities that made Barre granite so special exacted a fearful price from the men who worked with it, however. Some of the danger was readily apparent – quarry workers, for example, faced the difficulties inherent in boring, blasting, and lifting tons of hard, heavy stone. But those who did the jobs that required the least strength and the most artistry – the carving, the lettering, the polishing – were the ones who knew that their work would most likely kill them. As they worked on each stone, they raised clouds of silica-laden dust that day-by-day, year-by-year, tore their lungs apart. ‘Stonecutters’ TB’ they called it when the disease set in, guaranteeing a painful death at a young age.

The granite industry churned through the first two decades of the twentieth century as the dominant industry in central Vermont , but it was not invulnerable. A contentious strike in 1922 had a lasting negative impact on both employee morale and the quality of work produce