Product Description
"Newcomers in the Workplace" documents and dramatizes the changing face of the American workplace, transformed in the 1980s by immigrant workers in all sectors. This collection of excellent ethnographies captures the stench of meatpacking plants, the clatter of sewing machines, the sweat of construction sites, and the strain of management-employee relations in hotels and grocery stores as immigrant workers carve out crucial roles in a struggling economy. Case studies focus on three geographical regions Philadelphia, Miami, and Garden City, Kansas where the active workforce includes increasing numbers of Cubans, Haitians, Koreans, Puerto Ricans, Laotians, Vietnamese, and other new immigrants. The portraits show these newcomers reaching across ethnic boundaries in their determination to retain individualism and to insure their economic survival. Louise Lamphere teaches in the Department of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico. Alex Stepick is Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at Florida International University.Guillermo Grenier is Director of the Center for Labor Research and Studies, and Chairman of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Florida International University. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Socialist propaganda
I was a vegetarian for 10 years, the meat packing industry is no place for a career, however it may be a place for entry level employment especially for non English speaking immigrants. This book is quite simply socialist propaganda. If meat packers were paid more, then meat would cost more. If meat cost more, people would complain about the high cost of meat. The free market is the only way to find a fair balance of what people are willing to pay and what wage people are willing to work. "Capitalism and Freedom" by Milton Friedman should set this straight. If you need more info about this topic, please visit free-market.net or mises.org . peace out ... Read more

Product Description
Kansas City, 1929: Myrtle and Jack Bennett sit down with another couple for an evening of bridge. As the game intensifies, Myrtle complains that Jack is a “bum bridge player.” For such insubordination, he slaps her hard in front of their stunned guests and announces he is leaving. Moments later, sobbing, with a Colt .32 pistol
in hand, Myrtle fires four shots, killing her husband.

The Roaring 1920s inspired nationwide fads–flagpole sitting, marathon dancing, swimming-pool endurance floating. But of all the mad games that cheered Americans between the wars, the least likely was contract bridge. As the Barnum of the bridge craze, Ely Culbertson, a tuxedoed boulevardier with a Russian accent, used mystique, brilliance, and a certain madness to transform bridge from a social pastime into a cultural movement that made him rich and famous. In writings, in lectures, and on the radio, he used the Bennett killing to dramatize bridge as the battle of the sexes. Indeed, Myrtle Bennett’s murder trial became a sensation because it brought a beautiful housewife–and hints of her husband’s infidelity–from the bridge table into the national spotlight. James A. Reed, Myrtle’s high-powered lawyer and onetime Democratic presidential candidate, delivered soaring, tear-filled courtroom orations. As Reed waxed on about the sanctity of womanhood, he was secretly conducting an extramarital romance with a feminist trailblazer who lived next door.

To the public, bridge symbolized tossing aside the ideals of the Puritans–who referred derisively to playing cards as “the Devil’s tickets”–and embracing the modern age. Ina time when such fearless women as Amelia Earhart, Dorothy Parker, and Marlene Dietrich were exalted for their boldness, Culbertson positioned his game as a challenge to all housebound women. At the bridge table, he insisted, a woman could be her husband’s equal, and more. In the gathering darkness of the Depression, Culbertson leveraged his own ballyhoo and naughty innuendo for all it was worth, maneuvering himself and his brilliant wife, Jo, his favorite bridge partner, into a media spectacle dubbed the Bridge Battle of the Century.

Through these larger-than-life characters and the timeless partnership game they played, The Devil’s Tickets captures a uniquely colorful age and a tension in marriage that is eternal. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (20)

Superb, extremely well-written, thrilling stuff
A terrific and enthralling story beautifully and seamlessly intertwining related tales: the rise of contract bridge and its mesmerizing promoters Ely (and Jo) Culbertson; a fatal bridge game and the ensuing trial in Kansas; an aging senator and litigator; and, most important, the changing pace and mores of America herself.

The author's presentation is riveting and the prose is pellucid and pleasant to read. Pacing is excellent, one finds oneself writing a screenplay for this almost subconsciously. Not since Doctorow's Ragtime have so many threads of early twentieth century U.S. been woven together so elegantly.

Knowledge of bridge is not necessary at all to enjoy; I don't play but found the primer at the back enough to follow.

There were two minor weaknesses.

First, there was perhaps a bit of a dearth of reproductions of primary sources. I'd have liked to have seen reproductions of the full text and images of many of the newspaper and magazine articles discussed. Of course, the book would then be six hundred pages but the material is so interesting, it would be worth it. Arguably, a section on the role of evidence law and in the trial, and how it changed as well, would have be interesting.

Second, the epilogue section, following the predictable entropic demise and fading of the main players, went on a bit too long and was a bit slow for my taste.

Anyway, this book seems to me likely to become a classic.

Great story, NOT just for bridge players
I like reading history and stories about interesting people, and so really enjoyed this book.Tells parallel storiesof the major booster for contract bridge (and for himself) and of a woman who fatally shot her husband after a acrimoniousbridge game.Ely Culbertson decided to become the world's foremost expert on contract bridge and thus make his fortune. And, he did so, only to fall into a pathological megalomania later.Myrtle Bennett was a formidable woman who got slapped once too often by his trigger-tempered husband. She shot him after he repeated slapped her in front of guests, after a badly-played bridge hand during which she had called him a "bridge bum."I won't reveal the results of her salaciously covered trial here.However, the author does an amazing job in tracking her history down (years after her death) and filling in some blanks left in her life after the trial.Underlying all this, the book goes over the history of bridge in America....I think we forget how popular this game was at one time.This book was well-written and fast-paced.I do not play bridge and was afraid that he would digress in boring card-by-card details of historic bridge hands, but he covers major "matches" that Culbertson set up without resorting to such.

Great Bookshelf Addition
Well researched and written.Most bridge players who have heard of "the wife who shot her husband over a bridge hand" have thought the story was exaggerated gossip.Thank you Gary Pomerantz for clarifying an urban legend into a most enjoyable novel.Plus, you don't need to understand the game of bridge to appreciate this great read.

A little more than I needed to know
A fascinating history of the development of contract bridge in the U.S., along with con artists and a murder.I am not a bridge player, so some of the details were more than I wanted to know about.Nevertheless, the background history of the 1920's and 1930's was enlightening and well told.

Murder, High-Stakes Bridge, Infidelity - Kansas City History in an Interesting Read
In 1929, an inebriated (beautiful) Myrtle Bennett chased down and shot her inebriated (dashing) husband after he ridiculed her over a bridge hand.The Bennetts were not Kansas City "high society" nor "monied", but her trial lawyer and others that touched her story were.Enter James A. Reed (yes, there is a Kansas City street named after him), Nell Donnelly (the doyenne of Kansas City fashion), and references to Boss (Tom) Pendergast, Harry Truman and Woodrow Wilson.

Pomerantz, the author, juxtaposes Myrtle Bennett's murder trial against the rise of Ely and Jo Culbertson, a superb bridge playing and advertising duo who took the nation by storm.Not only did Ely stage publicity-filled high stakes drawn out bridge game duals,Ely also sold his bridge system books (the Culbertson system) to housewives and promised them that bridge would equalize them ("you can be your husband's equal and more").They were quite the couple and very interesting to read about.

Then there is the Kansas City setting.Many of the places, including the murder location, still exist.At the time of the murder, most people thought that James A. Reed was going to be the next president; instead Harry Truman (a mere court administrator) snagged the title.The book discusses James A. Reed's affair with Nell Donnelly and Nell's potential influence on Reed's decision to take on the Bennett murder trial.

Pomerantz doesn't stop at the murder trial verdict.He understands that we want to know what happened afterwards.He visited Kansas City locations (including inside of the Bennett's apartment), tracked people down and interviewed relatives, friends and acquaintances.This portion of the book is written in first person and is quite interesting.

If you are a history fan, a Kansas City fan or just want to read an interesting book, The Devil's Tickets would be a good choice.

Two other Kansas City history books to read are Deaths on Pleasant Street and Zero at the Bone: The Playboy, the Prostitute, and the Murder of Bobby Greenlease.
... Read more

Product Description
From its colonization to the Los Angeles riots, this book recounts the history of America from a multicultural point of view, while detailing the involvements and achievements of the non-Anglo participants who helped create it. Reprint. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (41)

Not the best...
This book has some great stories and incorporates necessary pieces of history.That being said, the chapters are a little scattered and long.Many of the points Takaki wants to prove could be done so in much less print.

Practically new.
No rips or marks. It's a new book for a used book price. Even smells new!!

If you are interested in multi-culturalism, you must read Takaki's book.
A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America
Review by Richard L. Weaver II, Ph.D.

This is an absolutely fascinating, well-written, extremely well-documented book that is revised from the 1993 edition. If you are interested in multi-culturalism, you must read Takaki's book. When I say "well-documented," there are 71 pages of notes in this 529-page book. The index itself is 10 pages long. Takaki covers the cultural perspectives of the Irish, Japanese, blacks, Native Americans, and others as various times throughout American history, and what is great about the book is that he puts you, the reader, right into the mindset of the people he is discussing so you come away with some of the insights, feelings, and reactions of various people. This is a credible, believable, and educational work that makes an important and significant contribution to multicultural literature. The book is not a complete history, but what Takaki does is focus in-depth on a variety of events and issues that reveal the cultural perspective he is discussing. There are some people who may be offended by what Takaki writes, especially when he details some of the horrendous crimes the majority whites committed against minority races -- especially people who have read and believed what is written in many mainline required textbooks. Nicole, from Oxford, Ohio, explained this in her review of the book: "One thing I have to teach my conservative, mid-Western students is to move beyond the `white guilt' many Americans seem to suffer from in order to see that the oppression minorities were victim to was a systematic process based on totalitarian ideals, and not some inherent white evil. I believe by presenting the information the way Takaki has, he allows readers to read a multifaceted version of American history (not the myopic, one dimensional history taught in American schools) that effectively places different groups within a specific time and place in history. If you are not afraid to read some truth about America (without the artificiality of `Pomp and Circumstance'), this is for you." If you like American history, you will love this book.

this is the history book we should be teaching our children
Had I known then what I know now I would have made different choices and come to different solutions in my life...this is how this book makes me feel. The method Takaki uses to re-teach the histoty we thought we learned is a perfect example of the epistemology he discusses in the book.

GREAT HISTORY BOOK
My daughter needs this book to study for the SAT.She said that most of the students in her class are reading it, and they are enjoying reading all of the facts. ... Read more

Product Description
Adoption brings new life to everyone involved.An abandoned and disconnected child is given a home and a place to belong and an incomplete family receives the gift of a new member to nurture and love.

In The Intentional Family, Kimberley Raunikar Taylor reaches into her own experience of adopting a child to give hope and encouragement to those considering the possibility of adoption.With gentle wisdom, she examines the thoughts and emotions many experience before embracing this option then discusses all the joys and challenges one may face on the journey through the adoption process.

The Intentional Family helps women:

* Examine the condition of their own hearts and discover what motivates their desire for a child* Find blessings in a season of childlessness* Respond to God's desire to place the lonely and homeless in families* Prepare for the changes and challenges of adoption* Assimilate a new child into an existing family ... Read more

Product Description
From Yellowstone to the Great Smoky Mountains, America's national parks are sprawling tracts of serenity, most of them carved out of public land for recreation and preservation around the turn of the last century. America has changed dramatically since then, and so has its conceptions of what parkland ought to be.

In this book, one of our premier environmental historians looks at the new phenomenon of urban parks, focusing on San Francisco's Golden Gate National Recreation Area as a prototype for the twenty-first century. Cobbled together from public and private lands in a politically charged arena, the GGNRA represents a new direction for parks as it highlights the long-standing tension within the National Park Service between preservation and recreation.

Long a center of conservation, the Bay Area was well positioned for such an innovative concept. Writing with insight and wit, Rothman reveals the many complex challenges that local leaders, politicians, and the NPS faced as they attempted to administer sites in this area. He tells how Representative Phillip Burton guided a comprehensive bill through Congress to establish the park and how he and others expanded the acreage of the GGNRA, redefined its mission to the public, forged an identity for interconnected parks, and struggled against formidable odds to obtain the San Francisco Presidio and convert it into a national park.

Engagingly written, The New Urban Park offers a balanced examination of grassroots politics and its effect on municipal, state, and federal policy. While most national parks dominate the economies of their regions, GGNRA was from the start tied to the multifaceted needs of its public and political constituents-including neighborhood, ethnic, and labor interests as well as the usual supporters from the conservation movement.

As a national recreation area, GGNRA helped redefine that category in the public mind. By the dawn of the new century, it had already become one of the premier national park areas in terms of visitation. Now as public lands become increasingly scarce, GGNRA may well represent the future of national parks in America. Rothman shows that this model works, and his book will be an invaluable resource for planning tomorrow's parks. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Good management history but neglects the larger philosophical question
In this book, Hal Rothman provides a history of Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA).Rothman sees this as an example of a new type of urban park, though he doesn't really spend any time comparing it to Gateway NRA in New York, Cape Cod NRA outside Boston, Cuyahoga NP outside Cleveland, Santa Monica Mountains NRA outside Los Angeles, and the many other examples of urban national parks - - which should probably include the open spaces in Washington DC such as Rock Creek Park and the National Mall, for that matter.Instead, he views GGNRA more or less as one of a kind, despite the title of the book.

Two related themes take up most of his book: "civic environmentalism," that is, the local interest groups that pushed for the park and that shape its every action; and the management challenges that the National Park Service (NPS) faces in this environment.These challenges include issues such as dealing with natural and man-made fires, off-leash dogs, a nude beach, protecting cultural and historic resources, and figuring out what to do with Alcatraz.Most of the book deals with such matters and the politics around them.Rothman's narrative always risks going off into minutiae, but he keeps his eye on the larger management issues.

Rotman also includes lots of "obiter dicta" in his narrative - - opinionated and unsupported comments about American politics and society that are irrelevant for the story here. It's indicative of this predilection that Rothman mentions Ronald Reagan and his Interior Secretary, James Watt, far more than he mentions Nixon, Carter, Clinton or either Bush, or their Interior Secretaries.Rothman would rather get in some digs at Reagan and Watts as he tells the story, though these two figures were no more involved in decisions at Golden Gate than, say, Clinton and Babbitt.

Aside from that distraction, this is an informative and well-crafted book.I'd like to know more about why people think Golden Gate is a *national* resources as opposed to a state or regional resources, and in fact many of its properties used to be state parks.Given the remarkable diversity in resources, why should all these non-contiguous units be gathered together in a single national recreation area?Rothman never addresses this larger issue, which seems to me a fundamental policy question about these kinds of parks.

New Challenges in Park Management
Completing a full-length history of Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) might seem odd considering its relative youth compared to other national park areas. Hal Rothman, chair of the history department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas demonstrates the park deserves such a study because it is different than anything the National Park Service has managed before. At GGNRA, the traditional NPS management style had to be adapted for a dynamic urban population that visited the urban park for a variety of reasons, most of which were not the typical uses long-established in the bureau's "crown jewels" like Yellowstone, Yosemite and Glacier.

Accustomed to exerting great influence in and around its larger, more conventional parks, at GGNRA the park held "one of many seats at a regional political and economic table" (x). Residents did not defer to park management like they had in and around the crown jewels. Previously, national parks functioned more as symbols than participatory reality (2). At GGNRA, the park service had to accept fully participating public and break its affinity to hiking by admitting visitors that enjoyed activities such as biking, hang gliding, skateboarding instead of simple sightseeing.

GGNRA has presented many management challenges. The park is largely without boundary signs or markers and it has been easy for visitors to overlook its national status (61). Many areas of the park contain private property, which is a source of management difficulty because the owners' decisions could impact visitors experience in the park and the park's ecology (94). Unlike any previous national park, GGNRA established a Citizen's Advisory Board. The NPS has greatly heeded to public comment in shaping management practices. The park presented one of the most comprehensive management plans ever enacted (62).

Interpreting became the linchpin of the park, a way of communicating to its endless constituencies. Instead of merely explaining features, interpretation in GGNRA explained the very presence of the Park Service (150). Interpretation and management of the park will always be a challenge, according to Rothman, because GGNRA is "asked to be all things to all people, all the time" (xi). GGNRA is a prime example demonstrating that no single presentation will impress all national park visitors. Multiple presentations must exist to appeal to a public that visits national parks for a myriad of reasons. Nowadays national parks are anything and everything to visitors, depending on their interests, whether they are recreational enthusiasts or car-bound sightseers.

The book contains one large map of the park, but no photographs or more detailed diagrams. The narrative would be thoroughly enriched by providing its readers with a means of visualizing the locations described. In the introduction, Rothman states that the Park Service embraced recreation in the 1960s. The park service, in reality, has embraced recreation since its inception. The author declares later in the narrative that the NPS was more accustomed to viewing its visitors as hikers and equestrians than bikers and skateboarders. Hiking and horseback riding are definitely forms of recreation. These small weaknesses aside, The New Urban Park proves a thorough study of how NPS management has had to reinvent itself to take on the administration of sanctuaries that appeal to a wider public than it has traditionally served.
... Read more

Product Description
Whether seen as a land of opportunity or as paradise lost, the American West took shape in the nation’s imagination with the help of those who wrote about it; but two groups who did much to shape that perception are often overlooked today.

Promoters trying to lure settlers and investors to the West insisted that the frontier had already been tamed—that the only frontiers remaining were those of opportunity. Through posters, pamphlets, newspaper articles, and other printed pieces, these boosters literally imagined places into existence by depicting backwater areas as settled, culturally developed regions where newcomers would find none of the hardships associated with frontier life.

Quick on their heels, some of the West’s original settlers had begun publishing their reminiscences in books and periodicals and banding together in pioneer societies to sustain their conception of frontier heritage. Their selective memory focused on the savage wilderness they had tamed, exaggerating the past every bit as much as promoters exaggerated the present.

Although they are generally seen today as unscrupulous charlatans and tellers of tall tales, David Wrobel reveals that these promoters and reminiscers were more significant than their detractors have suggested. By exploring the vast literature produced by these individuals from the end of the Civil War through the 1920s, he clarifies the pivotal impact of their works on our vision of both the historic and mythic West.

Wrobel shows that these works were vital to the process of identity formation among westerners themselves and to the construction of a "West" in the national imagination. He also sheds light on the often elitist, sometimes racist legacies of both groups through their characterizations of Native Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, and Asian Americans.

Wrobel suggests that the West has not really changed much: promoters still tout its promise, while old-timers still try to preserve their selective memories. His book shows us that the West may well move into the twenty-first century, but our images of it are forever rooted in the nineteenth. ... Read more

Product Description

The important, provocative issues in this popular reader-- including fixing urban schools, dealing with aging infrastructure, and addressing the mortgage crisis-- are sure to lay needed groundwork and spark lively classroom discussion. For current coverage of controversial and important policy issues centering on urban politics, offer your students the balanced reporting and engaging writing that CQ Researcher has consistently provided for over eighty years.

This ideal supplement allows students to see an issue from all sides while giving them a window into how policy is actually made and implemented. In addition, useful pedagogical features-- pro/con pieces, graphs, tables, maps, photos, suggested readings, and bibliographies-- advance critical thinking and help in study and review.

Customer Reviews (1)

Good Introduction to issues, hardly any depth besides
I had to buy this for class, and I would not have bought it otherwise.It is good to introduce people to the debate conservatives and liberals have on issues such as urban schools, crime, illegal immigration, and poverty.I knew most of the arguments presented here already, so I did not get much out of the book. ... Read more

Product Description
Stroll down Larimer Street in Denver or through Pioneer Square in Seattle and you feel that you're stepping into history while browsing the expensive boutiques and tourist shops. But are you?

In this intriguing study of some of America's favorite places, Judy Morley takes a fresh look at adaptive reuse efforts in cities of the former frontier. Focusing on urban preservation resulting from the competing interests of architectural preservationists, city planners, chambers of commerce, and boosters, she shows how developers have often taken artistic license to re-create the western past into shopping centers and tourist traps-in ways that privilege an imagined "heritage" over a more complex history.

Examining Old Town Albuquerque, Larimer Street and LoDo in Denver, and Pioneer Square and Pike Place Market in Seattle, Morley describes the creation and marketing of western heritage under the guise of historic preservation. She draws on extensive interviews, city council proceedings, and historic plats and photographs to construct a detailed picture of how these districts originally looked and were used, how they were renovated, and to what ends they were marketed.

This is the first book to systematically address issues of historic preservation and western urban growth, examining the interplay of identity, preservation, and tourism. It identifies the economic, political, and social issues that transformed each historic district into a place that resonated with the popular imagination. Along the way, Morley exposes the ironies that have attracted criticism to historic districts, such as Old Town Albuquerque's celebration of Hispanic heritage-even though Hispanic residents were displaced during the renovation-or Larimer Street's hiding of its actual skid-row past beneath a veneer of more tourist-friendly history.

But while critics charge that historic preservation often celebrates a sanitized past, Morley suggests that these locales offer both residents and visitors a window on a shared romantic history and a sense of belonging, serving as vital locations for community festivals, holiday events, and even public gatherings in times of tragedy. ... Read more

Product Description
From the Iranian hostage crisis through the Gulf War and the bombing of the World Trade Center, the American news media have portrayed "Islam" as a monolithic entity, synonymous with terrorism and religious hysteria. In this classic work, now updated, the author of Culture and Imperialism reveals the hidden agendas and distortions of fact that underlie even the most "objective" coverage of the Islamic world.Amazon.com Review
While the 16 years that have passed since the first edition of this book hit the stands have been marked by an increase in sensitivity toward many ethnic, racial, and sexual minorities, the easy acceptance of stereotypes and prejudices in the portrayal, depiction of, and reporting about Islamic peoples has remained largely constant. In this updated version of this rigorous but engaging volume Edward Said looks at how American popular media has used and perpetuated a narrow and unfavorable image of Islamic peoples, and how this has prevented understanding while providing a fictitious common enemy for the diverse American populace. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (53)

exactly what was described
i needed this book for a research paper, it was exactly what i needed and what i expected it to look like. it was delivered on time, no problems at all. Thank you

Essential Reading
Any rational person who values the truth and covets intellectual freedom for his or herself should read this book. This examines the greatest propaganda campaign presently assaulting the American psyche. You can continue with Edward Said, or go on to Naomi Wolfe and Noam Chomsky if you don't buy everything they're selling you on the tube.

Biased book but nice topic
this book is an eye opener but has conflicting views and is hard to understand.

about life and culture
Understanding different points of view is part of a hollistic thought we should have. This book help us comprehend how the world is so different from what we believe it is: it's bigger and more complex than the daily news we watch on Tv and read on the newspaper.

Excellent
An excellent analysis of U.S. media incompetence and bias in their coverage of the Islamicate world during the past 30 years. ... Read more