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When the call went out to listeners of National Public Radio's Weekend All Things Considered to submit stories about their personal experiences, the results were overwhelming. I Thought My Father Was God: And Other True Tales from NPR's National Story Project contains editor Paul Auster's pick of the best submissions. The stories, whether fact or fiction, all exhibit a heartfelt earnestness to be heard, and share similar themes of bizarre coincidences, otherworldly intervention, love and loss, life-changing experiences, and mundane pleasures. Some are deeply moving, most are not. But it is uplifting and well worth the time to sift through these brief snapshots of our collective human experience.
To give the book shape, Auster has done his best to categorize the material by subject, such as Animals, Families, War, Love, Dreams, and the like. These categories hold true to the submission criteria: "[I was most interested in] stories that defied our expectations about the world, anecdotes that revealed the mysterious and unknowable forces at work in our lives, in our family histories, in our minds and bodies, in our souls.... I was hoping to put together ... a museum of American reality." I Thought My Father Was God is a testament that, despite what on a bad day we may think is a drab existence, we all have a few good stories in us. --Michael Ferch
Book Description
The true-life stories in this unique collection provide "a window into the American mind and heart" (The Daily News).One hundred and eighty voices - male and female, young and old, from all walks of life and all over the country - talk intimately to the reader. Combining great humor and pathos this remarkable selection of stories from the thousands submitted to NPR's Weekend All Things Considered National Story Project gives the reader a glimpse of America's soul in all its diversity.
Customer Reviews:
I Thought My Father Was God: And Other True Tales from NPR's National Story Project.......2007-08-30
I had heard about this book from a friend. I not only enjoyed reading it, as I did so it gave me a greater appreaciation for my own father. As my father laid dying, my brother and I took turns reading selected stories to him. It gave us a chance to tell him how much we (now as adults) appreaciated his years of parenting. I highly recommend it.
These stories are America, from one paragraph to three pages long........2005-12-05
I love the stories in this book. I love how they are written by "real" people, not professional writers. I love how they are true, and how every one, no matter how short, makes you feel or learn something strong and beautiful.
After reading each story, though, you will struggle with trying to decide if you should pause and feel the new emotion each one gave you, or if you should quickly flip through the next page, asking for more. I'm a greedy reader and I usually did the latter while reading this. But for the second read, I will force myself to reflect.
hilarious!.......2005-05-12
This book gathers some of the funniest stories I've ever read, which is saying a lot since they were written by laymen, not professionals. The funny stories were laugh-out-loud funny. The heartwarming stories were touching without being corny. All were provocative because they were authentically relayed by real people. The cynic who said s/he already read these in a "Chicken Soup" book obviously didn't read this collection. I defy anyone to read the story "Rascal" without having a vivid image of the day, laughing out loud from the belly, and being satisfied at the story of someone getting what he deserved! I have read this out aloud many times it's so funny AND rightous.
the grass-roots nature of how the stories were collected adds to the mystique that a call on the radio lead to such a great great book. Don't be overwhelmed by the size: pick and choose which stories you read (like I favored comedy over heart-warming).
Good Stories Have Power.......2005-04-07
In some ways I THOUGHT MY FATHER WAS GOD could be called "Chicken Soup for the NPR Soul." Like the titles in the familiar "Chicken Soup" series, this is a collection of stories from ordinary individuals that have a way of reaching readers. The selections in this volume stemmed from National Public Radio's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED National Story Project. The book is edited by noted writer Paul Auster who selected the stories included in this volume from nearly four thousand entries. The stories themselves range from the humorous and heartwarming to the serious. We meet a variety of people such as a woman who questions life after death when a lost ring is discovered; an artist who falls in love at first sight with a woman absorbed in Dickens' GREAT EXPECTATIONS; and a man who went to a Halloween party dressed as a priest, but gets a taste of ministry from people who have no idea its just a costume. These are juts a sampling of the many stories included in this work. The tales are varied, but share one common characteristic. All find meaning in ordinary events as we interact with the people in our lives: family members, friends, and sometimes strangers. Most of the contributors are not professional writers but each story is the creation of someone who has a desire to share an often times ordinary but deeply held story that needs to be told. When we finish reading the stories in this volume, we may be tempted to say "I can tell a story like that" and since these stories are so human and real, we probably can!
Americana at its best.......2004-11-26
I came upon a British publication of this book when I was in Vienna. I was very sick at the time, and as a young single woman travelling alone through Europe for the summer, was glad to have this company in my tiny hotel room for the three days I did not have enough strength to leave. Even if I was well, I don't know that I would have been able to put this book down.
The format of individual stories divided by genre is simple to pick up or put down without missing a beat, and the range of emotions, experiences, diversity, American geography.... it's beautiful. From sea to shining sea, the truth of what America is, what it has failed at, where its glories lay, what it can become. And just what life is. In the words of so many. I loved this book and was delighted it at home under a different title.
Average customer rating:
- Confederate Courage on Other Fields
- Uncommon Courage - Common Confederates
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Confederate Courage on Other Fields: Four Lesser Known Accounts of the War Between the States
Mark J. Crawford
Manufacturer: McFarland & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0786407204 |
Book Description
While many soldiers in the army of the Confederate States of America fought on famous fields like Gettysburg and Antietam, others demonstrated equal valor in lesser known places. Here are collected, for the first time, the accounts of four little known pieces of Confederate history. These four pieces are important components in understanding Confederate life in both small and large scale.
The first section concerns the battle of Dinwiddie Court House on March 31, 1865, the last significant Confederate victory and the prelude to the battle of Five Forks the next day. The second section chronicles the experiences of Col. Charles C. Blacknall of the 23rd North Carolina Infantry, whose letters offer insight into the life of an officer and his personal struggles before his death from wounds received at the battle of Winchester. The third section examines a tragic and bloody series of conflicts and retaliations in southeast Missouri that demonstrated the revenge and violence against civilians that often erupted during the war. Finally, the history of General Hospital Number One, at Kittrell Springs, is analyzed, including accounts from the hospital's chaplain and its chief surgeon, and many of the last words they recorded in the performance of their duties.
These four accounts illustrate very personal experiences of war by Confederate soldiers, in their own words from letters and diaries, period and contemporary photographs, and maps.
Customer Reviews:
Confederate Courage on Other Fields.......2000-07-19
This book delivers what it promises... 4 battles you surely would not have studied (unless you happened to be a "local" to one of the sites), seperate from one another but tied together by the crimson thread of Courage.
Great Stuff!
I highly recommend reading this book if you are a fan of Military History, a student of the "Civil War", or simply attracted to real acts of Heroism & Courage from an era blessed with a level of integrity and grit that is only a faded memory to America today.
Uncommon Courage - Common Confederates.......2000-07-03
To borrow the words of Shakespeare, "Courage mounteth with occasion". Far from the grand movements of the armies, the great battles and the central figures of the Civil War, one finds thousands of examples of personal courage of men who met the occasion, but have been largely forgotten by history.
Mark Crawford in "Confederate Courage on Other Fields" does great justice to four of these lesser-known stories of sacrifice, bravery in the face of great danger, suffering, and devotion to duty by men fighting for the Confederate cause. I found each tale to be well researched, insightful and easy to read.
"'Tisn't life that matters! `Tis the courage you bring to it" -Sir Hugh Walpole. I believe Colonel Charles Blacknall of the 23rd North Carolina Infantry, as described in Crawford's book, exemplifies the courageous leadership exhibited by many men of the south. A wealthy, educated planter, Blacknall hated drilling, the study of tactics and many of the trappings of the military. However, belief in a cause led him to great accomplishment, at a price of personal sacrifice, ultimately his own life. As you read his letters, and gain insight into his devotion to his family, and his love and understanding of his men, you will admire this fellow who gave all for what he believed in.
My primary reason for buying this book was my lifelong interest of events in the bitter struggle for control of Southeast Missouri. Though considered a backwater of the War and often ignored by historians, the violence of partisan and guerilla actions in these border counties profoundly affected everyone living in the region. Instead of a five-hour skirmish or five-day battle, the fate of this area was sealed in five years of ugly, shocking bloodletting and destruction. Most folks fled. In many parts of Southeast Missouri and Northeast Arkansas the bitterness remains to this day. Crawford's treatment of the conflict between Major James Wilson on the Union side and Colonel Timothy Reeves on the Confederate side is the most fair, accurate and honest I have read. A consequence of this contest was the execution of prisoners on both sides. In reading this account you will come to appreciate the bravery and gallantry of men caught up in a struggle without rules and often driven by revenge that discouraged noble actions.
You will finish this book with an expanded understanding of the "Brother's War", and the tremendous sacrifice of the average Confederate soldier as he faced danger in a courageous or fearless manner. I hope Mark will consider a sequel exploring the courage of Union men. I heartily recommend this book!
Book Description
Dissatisfied with the compartmentalization of studies concerning strikes, wars, revolutions, social movements, and other forms of political struggle, McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly identify causal mechanisms and processes that recur across a wide range of contentious politics. Critical of the static, single-actor models (including their own) that have prevailed in the field, they shift the focus of analysis to dynamic interaction. Doubtful that large, complex series of events such as revolutions and social movements conform to general laws, they break events into smaller episodes, then identify recurrent mechanisms and proceses within them. Dynamics of Contention examines and compares eighteen contentious episodes drawn from many different parts of the world since the French Revolution, probing them for consequential and widely applicable mechanisms, for example, brokerage, category formation, and elite defection. The episodes range from nineteenth-century nationalist movements to contemporary Muslim-Hindu conflict to the Tiananmen crisis of 1989 to disintegration of the Soviet Union. The authors spell out the implications of their approach for explanation of revolutions, nationalism, and democratization, then lay out a more general program for study of contentious episodes wherever and whenever they occur.
Download Description
Over the past two decades the study of social movements, revolution, democratization and other non-routine politics has flourished. And yet research on the topic remains highly fragmented, reflecting the influence of at least three traditional divisions. The first of these reflects the view that various forms of contention are distinct and should be studied independent of others. Separate literatures have developed around the study of social movements, revolutions and industrial conflict. A second approach to the study of political contention denies the possibility of general theory in deference to a grounding in the temporal and spatial particulars of any given episode of contention. The study of contentious politics are left to 'area specialists' and/or historians with a thorough knowledge of the time and place in question. Finally, overlaid on these two divisions are stylized theoretical traditions - structuralist, culturalist, and rationalist - that have developed largely in isolation from one another.
Customer Reviews:
Dynamics of Contention: A Great Leap Forward?.......2007-04-20
Charles Tilly and his colleagues' effort in Dynamics of Contention is a colossal one. They aim to develop a new way of looking at contentious politics and try to gauge similar patterns in what have so far been regarded as distinct phenomena. Such an effort ends up having merits as well as handicaps, though. I will try to address three issues in this paper (one merit and two handicaps).
The place of case studies in comparative research has long been an issue of debate. Given that all empirical analyses in Dynamics of Contention are eventually case studies, the virtue of the arguments developed in this book might support/undermine the overall virtue of case studies regarding comparative research. Obviously, the arguments and conclusions of Tilly and his colleagues cannot be generalized from their pair-studies, and these scholars admit this from the very start anyway. Yet if we consider theory-building a process comprising of several steps, rather than an end point where we finalize our propositions, case studies become useful tools that we can benefit from in most of the steps of theory building. What makes case studies in general and Tilly and his friends' research in particular important is that via thorough analyses of individual cases, this type of research is better equipped to capture the "mechanism" and "processes" that connect relevant phenomena. And this gives them a relative advantage over large-N studies in speculating about causal relationships. Indeed, then, if Dynamics of Contention is not a theory-building research, it is a very good hypothesis-generating one.
Yet it seems to me that Tilly et al. are doing what Sartori once criticized as excessive abstraction. The primary aim of the authors of Dynamics of Contention is to go beyond the previous static approaches and develop a dynamic approach to contentious politics. Though this sounds very exciting and promising, Tilly and his colleagues seem to achieve dynamism mostly through emptying the substantive elements of their arguments. Their relational approach focuses on the general question of "how" contentious politics influence social life; but this approach has very little to say about more concrete questions like "who", "what", or "when"; all these substantive questions are left to be answered by the specificities of "episodes". As such, all Tilly and his colleagues end up create is a model rather than a theory.
Finally, after reading the section on democratization -where I felt most at home-, I started to doubt the novelty of Tilly and his colleagues' dynamic approach. Tilly et al. criticize the previous research on democratization for focusing on conditions rather than mechanisms. They then offer a dynamic account of democratization with mechanisms operating on three domains: public politics, inequality, and networks of trust. Yet it seems to me that these three domains have already been identified by the current literature on democratization. Moore's (1966) classic book illustrates the changing public politics as a result of changing economic conditions; Rueschemeyer et al. (1992) argue that the central dilemma of a capitalist economic development -increasing inequality between the capitalist and labor classes- was the primary cause of the development of democracy in the Western world; and finally Lipset (1959) and others contend that rising civic virtues as a result of educational and demographic improvements, which alter existing relations of trust, play an important role in democratization. Tilly and his colleagues might still criticize these accounts for being partial. Yet in this case, what we need would be a synthesis of some current research, rather than a novel approach which they try to develop.
a spectacular bellyflop.......2004-09-26
If you are an academic involved with the field of social movements, you need to read this book, simply because so much of the current debate in the field is about it. If you are not such a person, don't bother. Dynamics of Contention is immensely disappointing. Within the field of social movement studies, the authors are supposed to be the equivalent of Olympic-level divers--but what they deliver is a spectacular bellyflop. I give the book two stars because the core ideas lying behind it are good. The authors want to break down the artificial academic barriers separating various fields that all deal with "contentious politics"--social movements, revolutions, ethnic conflict, etc. They also want to move beyond their own structurally oriented work, so central to the academic field of social movements, to try to incorporate the ideas of their cultural constructionist critics, plus introduce more of a focus on social relations. Instead of trying to create an invariant model, they want to search for patterns that recurr in widely different types of social conflicts, with different outcomes. Finally, their methodology of comparing unlike cases to find the common patterns is intriguing. Unfortunately, they never really develop a solid intellectual framework for all this. They identify some common patterns, but never explain the dynamics underlying them or why they are so common. They are rather inept in their attempts to bring culture into the picture, engaging in very thin description. In their attempt to create a more relational approach, they completely abandonn all the valuable structurally oriented work they've done. Finally, despite their attempt to focus on relationships and dynamic social actors, human agency--as in so much academic work on social movements--falls out of the picture. Although the authors obviously put a lot of work into this book, it just does not come together.
Book Description
"...a clarion call to society for the need to balance human demands with the needs of our world's rivers, the arterial system of life on this planet. The authors describe the vanguard movement to restore rivers and to reconnect rivers with their flood plains, portraying the under-appreciated life support services our rivers perform, their ecological function, and the threats to riverine ecosystems." -MIKE DOMBECK, CHIEF EMERITUS OF THE U.S. FOREST SERVICE AND PIONEER PROFESSOR OF GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-STEVENS POINT
"Finally! A book that pays attention to flow, not just pollutants, as central to river restoration. Blending science and readability, Rivers for Life offers refreshing insights into allocating limited water to meet the needs of humans and rivers." -JAMES R. KARR, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE
The conventional approach to river protection has focused on water quality and maintaining some "minimum" flow that was thought necessary to ensure the viability of a river. In recent years, however, scientific research has underscored the idea that the ecological health of a river system depends not on a minimum amount of water at any one time but on the naturally variable quantity and timing of flows throughout the year.
In Rivers for Life, leading water experts Sandra Postel and Brian Richter explain why restoring and preserving more natural river flows are key to sustaining freshwater biodiversity and healthy river systems, and describe innovative policies, scientific approaches, and management reforms for achieving those goals. Sandra Postel and Brian Richter: explain the value of healthy rivers to human and ecosystem health; describe the ecological processes that support river ecosystems and how they have been disrupted by dams, diversions, and other alterations; consider the scientific basis for determining how much water a river needs; examine new management paradigms focused on restoring flow patterns and sustaining ecological health; assess the policy options available for managing rivers and other freshwater systems; explore building blocks for better river governance
Sandra Postel and Brian Richter offer case studies of river management from the United States (the San Pedro, Green, and Missouri), Australia (the Brisbane), and South Africa (the Sabie), along with numerous examples of new and innovative policy approaches that are being implemented in those and other countries.
Rivers for Life presents a global perspective on the challenges of managing water for people and nature, with a concise yet comprehensive overview of the relevant science, policy, and management issues. It presents exciting and inspirational information for anyone concerned with water policy, planning and management, river conservation, freshwater biodiversity, or related topics.
Customer Reviews:
A Gentle Warrior.......2005-10-26
Sandra Postel writes in a clear and lyrical style which is entertaining to read. Her content is not overly technical nor is it patronisingly simplistic. Postel has a pleasing habit of rejecting jargon and buzz phrases.
I found her assertions, research and conclusions to be creditable. I enjoyed the breadth of the discussion.
She is not strident nor angry in her criticism of individuals or corporations, rather she lets good science do her talking.
Postel enjoys a wide audience and is often represented in university reading lists. She is one of the more enjoyable reads to be found there.
a wisdom runs through it.......2004-03-13
This book, like previous works by Sandra Postel, is a clarion warning call about the dangers in how we have been managing our waters. The message from this book that is of particular importance, is that truly successful, and therefore sustainable, environmental management is really just as much about managing people as it is about managing natural systems. For this reason, I have placed this important book on the reading list for my watershed management course at Harvard. And also, I am grateful that Sandra Postel agreed to write a front-end blurb for my recently published (by Green Frigate Books) book entitled Deep Immersion: The Experience of Water.
Book Description
This digital document is a journal article from Ecological Economics, published by Elsevier in . The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
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