Book Description
The most famous Native American book ever written, Black Elk Speaks is the acclaimed story of Lakota visionary and healer Nicholas Black Elk (1863–1950) and his people during the momentous, twilight years of the nineteenth century. Black Elk grew up in a time when white settlers were invading the Lakotas’ homeland, decimating buffalo herds and threatening to extinguish their way of life. Black Elk and other Lakotas fought back, a dogged resistance that resulted in a remarkable victory at the Little Bighorn and an unspeakable tragedy at Wounded Knee.
Beautifully told through the celebrated poet and writer John G. Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks offers much more than a life story. Black Elk’s profound and arresting religious visions of the unity of humanity and the world around him have transformed his account into a venerated spiritual classic. Whether appreciated as a collaborative autobiography, a history of a Native American nation, or an enduring spiritual testament for all humankind, Black Elk Speaks is unforgettable.
This special edition features all three prefaces to Black Elk Speaks that John G. Neihardt wrote at different points in his life, a map of Black Elk’s world, a reset text with Lakota words reproduced using the latest orthographic standards, and color paintings by Lakota artist Standing Bear that have not been widely available for decades.
Customer Reviews:
Native Respect.......2007-07-29
Both Thomas E.Mails and John Niehardt have brought to life the true nature of the Native American in their masterly renditions of their interviews with these Medicine (Holy) men, both Fools Crow and Black Elk. The result is an understanding of the simple honesty, good nature and trust that initially left them so open to exploitation. More importantly, they demonstrated a sincere belief in God that the 'White Man' was singularly lacking in the early pioneers. Their beliefs ran parallel with the Primitive Church as established by Jesus during his ministry in the Middle Ages.Fools Crow
A Great Vision.......2006-05-08
_Over the years I have read this book in the wilderness and in the wasteland. Every time that I have reread it I have come away renewed.
_There are just so many levels on which this account can be appreciated. It is one of the best first-hand accounts of plains life- from camp life, to the march, the hunt, courting, healing, etc. It is also one of the best first-hand accounts of historical events- the Fetterman Fight, the Wagon box Fight, Red Cloud's Treaty, the Custer Fight, Wounded Knee... It is also a first-rate autobiography of the deepest thoughts of a man who fears that he may not have lived up to his God-given destiny. But, above all, it is a legitimate Revelation from the world beyond.
_At times Black Elk seems to despair that he didn't live up to his great vision. Personally, I do not see this. He did what he was supposed to do. First, he brought his vision to his people in the form of the magnificent Horse Dance. Then, in his twilight years, he wisely brought the same vision to the outside world in the form of this book. This was too powerful and universal a vision to be confined to one people alone. Every part of it resonates with the Perennial Philosophy, the eternal religion that underlies all true Tradition- from the World Tree at the center of the people's hoop, to the certain knowledge that the things of this world are but a shadow of the true Reality of the next.
_As far as the sacred herb of four blossoms is concerned that he saw at the end of the forth ascent- that was the rebirth of the sacred tree from sacred seed. This book is that seed.
Wisdom and Inspiration Abound!.......2006-03-16
This is an exceptionally moving book for anyone yearning to know more about Native American spirituality. Black Elk was truly a man filled with the holy spirit. It reminds me of the book, Walking the Trail, One Man's Journey Along the Cherokee Trail of Tears. Both are highly recommended.
A Religious Classic?.......2006-01-11
It says on the jacket of this book that Black Elk Speaks belongs in the company of 'religious classics'. Maybe so, but even if you regard his visions as indicative of a religious experience, the parts of the book dedicated to the description of these visions make for rather tedious reading. The real meat of the book is his decriptions of the last of the major indian battles at Rosebud, Little Big Horn (Custer's Last Stand), and Wounded Knee. Black Elk and his friends were there, and lived through those harrowing days. A must-read book for anyone who wants to know how it really was.
Black Elk Speaks.......2005-09-20
I am really enjoying reading this book. It is the second time for me but it is as good as the first time. I know it is the kind of book that I will read over and over again!
Customer Reviews:
A Great Vision.......2006-05-08
_Over the years I have read this book in the wilderness and in the wasteland. Every time that I have reread it I have come away renewed.
_There are just so many levels on which this account can be appreciated. It is one of the best first-hand accounts of plains life- from camp life, to the march, the hunt, courting, healing, etc. It is also one of the best first-hand accounts of historical events- the Fetterman Fight, the Wagon box Fight, Red Cloud's Treaty, the Custer Fight, Wounded Knee... It is also a first-rate autobiography of the deepest thoughts of a man who fears that he may not have lived up to his God-given destiny. But, above all, it is a legitimate Revelation from the world beyond.
_At times Black Elk seems to despair that he didn't live up to his great vision. Personally, I do not see this. He did what he was supposed to do. First, he brought his vision to his people in the form of the magnificent Horse Dance. Then, in his twilight years, he wisely brought the same vision to the outside world in the form of this book. This was too powerful and universal a vision to be confined to one people alone. Every part of it resonates with the Perennial Philosophy, the eternal religion that underlies all true Tradition- from the World Tree at the center of the people's hoop, to the certain knowledge that the things of this world are but a shadow of the true Reality of the next.
_As far as the sacred herb of four blossoms is concerned that he saw at the end of the forth ascent- that was the rebirth of the sacred tree from sacred seed. This book is that seed.
This Bison Books edition is the first that I read- it is filled with hand drawn illustrations.
Book Description
This book brings to life one of the most bitter and inglorious conflicts in american history. Drawing on his interviews with hundreds of veterans of Korea, Knox masterfully weaves personal stories with military records to create a vivid, day-by-day chronicle of the war’s first savage months of fighting. Index; photographs and maps.
Customer Reviews:
Tremendous.......2005-02-16
This is the first of two volumes of compelling history; I picked it up after finishing Fehrenbach's This Kind of War (also highly recommended) and it made a great companion read. The format allows for insightful observations by the men who lived the extraordinary months of June to December 1950, fighting a determined enemy who caught the U.S. and its allies flat footed and unprepared for combat in nearly every way. Fortunately, our warriors steeled themselves and, fighting over rugged terrain and in extreme weather , saved South Korea and proved our collective will to prevent communism's unchecked spread. The author skillfully weaves observations that illuminate both tactical and operational level actions and decisions, and he accurately portrays the human dimenson of men fighting for reasons that are both noble and fundamental, most notably, for each other. I greatly enjoyed this effort and highly recommend it along with the second volume, Uncertain Victory by Donald Knox and Alferd Coppel (Knox died unexpectedly halfway through this book); it covers a longer time range (1951 to 1953), but is equally compelling.
An excellent book on a little-known war.......2004-01-14
This book was my introduction, appart from what little I was tought in school, to the Korean War. Knox does an excellent job of bringing the Korean War to life by letting the actual soldiers tell their tales. From the initial reaction of the troops in occupied Japan who were first sent there, to the bitter fighting at the Chosin Reservoir, Knox weaves an inthralling picture of what happened through the eyes of the soldiers who were actually there. If you are looking for a good narative that incompasses both the strategic and tactical aspect of the ground war in Korea, this is the book for you.
The Korean War: Pusan to Chosin.......2002-05-19
I like is book mainly because it gave me a better understanding of the thoughts and feelings the troops had in the different conficts of the Korean WAR.
I have review other books on the subject but I believe this book gives the reader a more personal look at this difficult time. It is worth the time to read and ponder the words. Thank you for a book well written.
The area of the book that I feel can be improved is a better matching of the military troop thoughts and the time frame of the conficts as to the duration of the WAR.
As Close As You'll Get.......2000-03-20
This is the best military oral history I've ever read, and it's as close as you will get to having been there. Although there are interviews and statements from all ranks, the concentration at the company level made this book especially compelling in giving a sense of the daily combat for those hundreds of nameless hills in korea. It gave a real feeling of life and death to the thousands of men who were wounded and killed. The interviews on the first month of the war on being overrun and then forming the Pusan perimeter are particularly vivid. For anyone who is reads military history this is a must read.
I cannot put the book down!.......1999-08-27
I became interested in the Korean War only after having joined the Army myself. My father fought in the war with the Army, but never talked about his role much, or what he went through. I bought Mr. Knox's book after glancing at it on the book store shelf. The first person accounts bring you right into the war. By allowing the participants to tell the story from the first-person the reader gets a 360 degree view of each battle. The book reads almost like fiction instead of history. I feel the adrenaline rush of battle, the exhaustion of victory and the frustration of grabbing that weapon for yet another 10 mile movement-to-contact without sleep. I feel the loss when one of the "characters" is taken away on a stretcher, knowing that I'll not be hearing from him again. I now have a slightly better understanding of what that dirty little "police action" was like. I don't think I'll be able to find many more books that can match the emotion of this.
Book Description
Given unprecedented insider access, author Allen D. Hertzke charts the rise of this faith-based movement for global human rights and tells the compelling story of the personalities and forces, clashes and compromises, strategies and protests that shape it. In doing so, Hertzke shows that by raising issuessuch as global religious persecution, Sudanese atrocities, North Korean gulags, and sex traffickingthe movement is impacting foreign policy around the world.
Customer Reviews:
Guess Who Entered the Human Rights Campaign?.......2006-01-05
Guess Who Entered the Human Rights Campaign? A Review of Freeing God's Children: The Unlikely Alliance for Global Human Rights, by Allen D. Hertzke.
TRUE OR FALSE?
October, 2000. In support of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, Bill Bennett gives a speech in a Senate caucus room and the next speaker reads a supportive statement from Gloria Steinem. One observer notes, "Bill Bennett and Gloria Steinem and Chuck Colson and Gloria Feldt are all saying the same thing."
Good Friday, 2001. Michael Horowitz, Republican think tank director, and Joe Madison, African American radio personality, chain themselves to a fence at the Sudanese embassy in Washington (to protest that regime's support of a growing slave trade) and are arrested, then call on Johnnie Cochran to defend Horowitz, and Ken Starr to defend Madison. Fearing publicity, prosecutors drop the charges.
Late in 2000. Pope John Paul II, U2's Bono, and Pat Robertson join the campaign to provide debt relief to impoverished third-world countries. "Tightfisted Republican Senator" Phil Gramm threatens to filibuster the legislation. Pat Robertson asks viewers of the 700 Club to contact Gramm and demand he remove his hold on the legislation. Gramm promptly does just that.
Also in 2001. Kweisi Mfume and Al Sharpton join Jesse Helms, Henry Hyde, Dick Armey, and various evangelical leaders in calling for tough U.S. action against the NIF of northern Sudan.
Spring of 2003. Sudan violates its cease-fire agreement, causing the Midland Ministerial Alliance to deliver a letter to the Sudanese embassy under the letterhead "Hometown of President and First Lady Laura Bush." The letter explains that the group has been documenting NIF atrocities for five years and "flouting of the law will have devastating consequences for the regime." The letter gets the attention of the government of Sudan.
May, 2002. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof calls evangelicals the nation's "newest internationalists," saving lives "in some of the most forgotten parts of the world." Some go so far as to label evangelicals the "foreign-policy conscience of conservatism," rescuing Republican foreign policy from a takeover by big business.
All of the above statements are true. Surprised? If these unlikely alliances are news to you, you are not alone. This remarkable human rights movement has been all but ignored by the media. But the astonishing lack of coverage by the press has at least served to avoid giving away the ending of Allen Herztke's Freeing God's Children: the Unlikely Alliance for Global Human Rights. This movement has martialed the efforts of thousands of people all over the United States: feminists, Jews, Episcopals, Catholics, African American activists, modern-day abolitionists, and organizations as diverse as NOW, Amnesty International, the Campaign for Tibet, and the Southern Baptist Convention. Hertzke's book tells the story of these unlikely alliances. As he notes, Washington is known for strange bedfellows (a phrase Hertzke avoids for much of the book) but Washington has rarely seen such pervasive alliances of generally adverse parties.
Freeing God's Children is Hertzke's response to a challenge put to him seven years ago by Michael Horowitz, senior director at the Hudson Institute and (as Hertzke describes him) a catalyst for this new human rights movement. Horowitz, formerly of the Reagan White House, challenged Hertzke, professor of political science and director of Religious Studies at the University of Oklahoma, to chronicle the nascent movement by diverse Americans to press human rights around the world. That movement has revolutionized U.S. foreign policy and brought extraordinary changes to the conditions of suffering peoples the world over.
Hertzke became a "participant observer" in January, 1998. He admits the obvious bias such involvement might create, but would have it no other way. Where outsiders (myself included) have reported on this movement by describing one of its parts, like the blind prophets who touch only part of the elephant, Hertzke comprehends the whole animal, and his striking book paints the most only complete picture available. Hertzke's insider status also lends his writing greater immediacy. Indeed, his reports of various backroom meetings read like official minutes-or at least the pithy notes of one in attendance. A turn to the end notes confirms he was there. This first-person narrative elevates an already good story to the status of a thinking man's page-turner.
The professor's book, marketed for a general audience, is scholarly nonetheless. Hertzke interviewed some 50 individuals, many on multiple occasions, and he fills the book (and almost a thousand end notes) with a range of facts and sources that is staggering. The eight chapters average over 120 notes each. (A word to the publisher: chapter four's notes are mis-numbered between nn.56 and 85.) The book also includes an index and various tables, graphs, and photos. I imagine Hertzke would have us read his book as a work of political science, one providing both context for and analysis of a remarkable movement. But this book reads first and foremost as the story of a movement. And that is as it should be. It is the story that will commend this book to readers of the world, not the cogent analysis. The narrative is remarkable, telling the story of an unusual coalition of liberals and conservatives, passionate people who managed to put aside deeply felt animosities to fight for the freedoms and the lives of thousands. In a few short years, that fight has seen unprecedented success, and Hertzke's meticulous research documents that story in fascinating detail.
The story begins in the late 1980s as the fall of Soviet Communism combined with other factors to increase religious persecution around the world. It ends (for Hertzke's purposes) in 2004 with the better-late-than-never enforcement of the Trafficking Victims Act (enacted in 2000), leading to the freeing of thousands of international sex slaves. As he tells the story, Hertzke examines the movement in the context of political theory. And such analysis is warranted and insightful. But I could not shake the feeling that what really excited the writer was the movement itself, not the implications such a movement has for the movement theory crowd. When Hertzke writes-albeit briefly-to his peers in political science circles, it is distracting. It's not that the analysis is uninteresting or without merit. It's simply so much less interesting than the epic saga documented in the larger work.
Hertzke's thesis is that the movement is making a difference by waging war over human rights abuses that would otherwise have been ignored. As he puts it, the movement "is filling a void in human rights advocacy, raising issues previously slighted-or insufficiently pressed-by secular groups, the prestige press, and the foreign policy establishment." Hertzke supports this argument with compelling evidence, illustrating that each of the movement's campaigns have included three hallmarks: (1) a massive and slighted humanitarian tragedy, (2) engagement by the faith-based movement in alliance with others, and (3) pressure on the U.S. government to exercise more international leadership to stem abuses. These efforts have resulted in tough congressional legislation, robust executive action, and new international cooperation.
The book opens by explaining that recent years have seen a global resurgence of religion. This growth has touched all faiths, though Christianity may have grown the most. In fact, while Christianity is on the decline in Western Europe, it has grown so much around the world that it can no longer be described as a "white man's religion." "The majority of the world's Christians, indeed, are females of color." In fact, Christianity is no longer even a western religion. (Hertzke cites sources estimating that 70 percent of evangelicals now live in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.) But this return to religion, particularly a religion that teaches the equality of all in the eyes of God, presents a threat to the despots of the world. Believing that Christian churches helped topple Soviet Communism, China announced in 1992 through its state-run press: "If China does not want such a scene to be repeated in its land, it must strangle this baby while it is still in the manger." Dozens of other nations soon joined China in bloody attempts to eradicate unwanted religions, and by 2000 it was estimated that "36 percent of the world's population live in places where religious freedom is fundamentally violated."
Enter Michael Horowitz, Nina Shea, Rabbi David Saperstein, the New York Times' Abe Rosenthal, and "a cohort of fervent members of Congress," including Chris Smith (R-NJ), Frank Wolf (R-VA), Tony Hall (D-OH), in the House and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), Don Nickles (R-OK), and Sam Brownback (R-KS) in the Senate. These and a coalition of dozens of Jewish and Christian organizations and hundreds of committed men and women drafted and supported competing bills. But the coalition faced powerful opposition. Democrats and many in the human rights establishment were afraid to support a bill backed by such prominent evangelical leaders as Charles Colson and James Dobson. And Republican support was spotty because so-called "free-trade Republicans" could not stomach the threatened removal of non-humanitarian aid from nations deemed the worst persecutors. Worse yet, the Clinton White House promised to veto either bill. Then it happened: with the end of the 1998 Congressional season approaching and both bills doomed to failure, coalition members compromised, quickly amending, then solidly supporting one bill. Two months later, the International Religious Freedom Act passed both houses unanimously and was signed into law by President Clinton.
The International Religious Freedom Act radically altered the landscape for U.S foreign policy. It requires the President to address violations of religious freedom before engaging violating nations in more diplomatic activities, and it requires the State Department to annually collect and publish a mountain of data on the status of religious freedom in every foreign country. Presidents from both parties have proven reluctant to do either, and in the hands of an unwilling administration, both efforts might be compromised. But the law's master stroke was the creation of an independent and bi-partisan commission. The commission makes its own report and makes policy recommendations to the president. Unfettered by concerns about diplomacy and politics, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has done remarkable work since its inception in 1998. The story of the Commission and of the law that created it is amazing indeed, and Hertzke devotes half his book to that process.
But there's more. When the International Religious Freedom Act was passed, a huge coalition of willing workers was left in its wake. Many of these were motivated by a sense of religious calling, and though new to human rights advocacy were ready to do more. So Horowitz and others took the reins of the movement and pointed it at Sudan, where troops have been capturing and selling human slaves for years, a profitable alternative to their primary business of genocide. I recently mentioned the Sudanese slave market to my otherwise well-informed lawyer-colleagues. Not only had they heard nothing about the scourge of modern slavery, they were so skeptical about its existence, they insisted on seeing Hertzke's book for themselves. Fortunately, Freeing God's Children includes dozens of photos, and one shows Christian Solidarity International's John Eibner purchasing slaves in Sudan so his organization might set them free.
Hertzke offers interesting explanations for the lack of press coverage generated by these struggles. Many in the press have not adjusted to new realities following the fall of Soviet Communism, and when politically liberal Jews, conservative evangelicals, and Catholics joined together to fight international human rights abuses, the press was unwilling to report on alliances it could not see through cold-war lenses. Others in the press may not yet understand the role religion plays in international conflicts, and many disregard all religious motives as either part of the problem or as simply irrelevant. A more cynical theory says of the press corps that when human rights are violated, it's not news unless the oppressor is white. For some in the media, oppression by non-whites is less evil somehow, more tolerable because it is being done not by some colonizing empire, but by the locals, noble savages that they are. Whether Hertzke shares this view of the press is not clear, but the evidence supporting such a conclusion is persuasive.
The new religiously-motivated human rights coalition sees oppression differently. Not only did the coalition succeed in getting the Sudan Peace Act passed, but it kept pressure on the Sudanese government, forcing it to maintain its cease fire-thus ending a 20-year civil war and the slaughter of millions of Southern Sudanese. In addition to its efforts in Sudan, what began as a battle to end international religious persecution has since turned the world's attention to North Korean atrocities, to international sex slavery, resulting in the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, to international debt relief, relieving the burden on impoverished third-world countries, and to the domestic plague of prison rape, resulting in the Prison Rape Elimination Act. At each stop along the way, new members flocked to the coalition and its rapid growth continued.
This work is comprehensive. As a scholar, Hertzke is content to take his time, to examine and catalog each fact. But somewhere along the way, the tiles recede and an extraordinary mosaic appears. The big picture here is astounding, as so many diverse groups put their differences aside to fight for suffering people they will never meet. And the largest of these groups is composed of American evangelicals, a body few associate with global human rights. This is a case of truth being stranger, or more miraculous, than fiction. Given the opposition this movement has repeatedly faced, its many successes have often been seen as nothing short of providential. Hertzke shares such a view, and it lends his writing an affectionate tone, making even the minutiae compelling. In this story, it is not the devil, but God who is in the details.
This book is one-of-a-kind, the sine qua non on the subject. Without it, the uninitiated cannot fully comprehend current human rights struggles. Freeing God's Children is a systematic chronicle of a profound and effective movement. This book is as deep as Washington politics gets, and as broad as any spy thriller, taking the reader to Burma, Israel, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, Tiananmen Square, and dozens of other far-flung locales, along with one extraordinary stop in Midland, Texas. Hertzke's book is an attempt to sing an epic song. Hertzke sings it well. But unlike epics of old, this is the tale of not one but dozens of previously unsung heroes, people of every political and religious persuasion, who have shown amazing tenacity in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Where most would shrug and say, "Oh, well, I tried," the men and women in these pages seem incapable of giving up.
No book on human rights would be complete without tales of suffering victims, and this one includes dozens. But the part of me that stares at car accidents wanted to read more, though such is not Hertzke's purpose. (Helpfully, he names other books filled with such accounts-stories that must be told if Americans are to continue to fight for victims a world away). But the book ends with a tale of one life redeemed. Laneh, a child of six, was rescued from sexual slavery in a Cambodian brothel. Her life has been changed forever. This story is part of a larger essay on the future of the movement, and is some of the best writing in the book. Hertzke enjoys the material and the book ends with a tone and a tale that-after the 300 pages that precede it-is hopeful, cathartic, moving. The dispassionate scholar has finally unpacked his bags, carefully set out the contents, and put down his outline. Hertzke ends where most of his subjects have been for a decade, working and writing from the heart.
Wales, a Houston-based attorney, is a Senior Fellow of the American Freedom Center and the author of Remembering the Persecuted: An Analysis of the International Religious Freedom Act. Houston Journal of International Law, Spring, 2002; 24 Hous. J Int'l. L 579.
Eye-opening to the Possibilities..........2005-09-14
of what Christian religious conservatives can accomplish if they choose targets that do not generate widespread popular counter-resistance and are given better advice in terms of political strategy.
I particularly enjoyed the passage that describes how the Ethiopian Christian who had endured torture and imprisonment astounded Michael Horowitz with his willingness to forgive and belief that if the dictator of Ethiopia truly came to be a Christian and repented of his past behavior that he would go to Heaven. Those are the sorts of witnesses for Xty that we need today.
dlw
Customer Reviews:
a good manual,good for beginers and has good information.......1998-10-18
this is a very good book for begineers and might help a middle leval pigeon fancier. has a lot on feed,sicknesses,and care.well worth the money.I'm a beginer and it helped me.has a good list of books and has very good photos of Foy's Pigeon Farms. a good all around book. espiecilly for me(a 11 year old)sice I don't have ton's of money to spend. done by Daniel A. Jacobs age 11
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General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk's Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux (Civilization of the American Indian Series)
Lakota Woman
Black Elk: The Sacred Ways of a Lakota
Mother Earth Spirituality: Native American Paths to Healing Ourselves and Our World (Religion and Spirituality)
Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions (Enriched Classics)
