Customer Reviews:
Self-Made Calamity.......2007-06-04
Though it's not mentioned in this biography, it's worth noting that cowboy artist C.M. Russell, who was more or less Calamity's contemporary, and who shared at least one mutual friend, cowboy Teddy Blue Abbott, never painted nor even mentioned Calamity in any of his artwork, stories, or recollections. It was Russell who wrote, "The worst old timer I every knew, looks dam good to me." James McLaird's painstaking new book suggests that perhaps Russell didn't find Calamity scandalous but dull.
Martha Jane Canary / Calamity Jane was, in her childhood and adolescent years, an example of resourcefulness and grit. She survived a broken home, neglect, and abandonment. That she survived at all, much less as a camp follower who chanced to visit some famous camps, would be enough to earn her a footnote in history books. Had she never returned to Deadwood after her first visit, she'd probably have some polite mention in the town's history. When she came back a second time, she was an item of nostalgia; but when she returned a third time, she was a nuisance and embarrassment.
James McLaird has done nothing less than a phenomenal job, and possibly a thankless one. He sifted and sorted through every book, article, memoir, and dime novel that might make mention of Calamity in order to establish just who she was and how much of her legend had any basis in fact. And the truth is neither flattering nor thrilling. If Calamity has anything to be memorialized for, apart from occasional nursing duties, it would be her travels. When not following the U.S. Cavalry into the Black Hills, she followed the railroad as it pushed its way across the West. She hobnobbed with Wild Bill Hickock, but probably never shared a bed with him. She was nowhere near General Custer and the 7th Cavalry when they encountered Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. She tended bars, drove wagons, whored, drank, and fought till she was asked to leave town, and might have continued to do so comfortably if she hadn't become a celebrity. Behind her dime novelesque façade, she was a bitter alcoholic, aging prematurely and sinking toward an early death in her late 40s.
McLaird paints as sympathetic a portrait as he can. Calamity fell victim both to herself and the legend she engendered. Some years after her death, she was exploited again by Jean McCormick, a con artist who fabricated an elaborate and clumsy hoax to "prove" she was the daughter of Calamity and Wild Bill Hickock. McLaird commendably restrains his sarcasm and lets irony speak for itself. The McCormick ruse not only found believers in the 1940s, but continues to have adherents in these days of "Deadwood."
The Most Thorough, Reliable Information on Calamity Jane.......2007-01-10
In the past 20 years I've read a lot of information on Calamity Jane, and James Mclaird's book is the most reliable, well-researched book on the subject of this woman. Most of the information floating around about her is false, and Mclaird painstakingly dissects myth from fact, including how each myth or rumor was started in the first place. Since reading Calamity Jane:The Woman And The Legend, I feel like a pseudo-expert on her myself, and can easily spot misinformation and poor research whenever I see it in other publications. I highly recommend this read for Old West enthusiasts, students who are looking for a topic, and anyone interested in what a genuinely thorough biography is supposed to be. If you're considering another source on her life other than this one, don't bother because it's probably a jumble of misinformation. This book is the only way to go.
Worth Reading.......2007-01-03
An interesting review of Jane's life. Well written, this book shows the real Calamity Jane not just the Dime Novel Legend. Make no mistake, Jane lived a hard life, but her story is well worth your time to read.
Decent Biography of a Western Myth.......2006-02-08
This well researched and documented biography of Mary Canary a.k.a. Calamity Jane (1856-1903) lifts the veil behind a Western myth. The real Calamity Jane really did have a calamitous life. She spent most of her life in the roughest spots - as a military camp follower, in rough and tumble mining towns, and in the ever raucous and short lived railroad junction towns springing up as the tracks were laid across the country. She made her living as a dance hall girl, prostitute, laundress, cook, Madame, and similar pursuits. She was a life long alcoholic and was clearly dissipated at an early age. Later in life, some ways, she lived off the kindness of others or cashed in on her unearned fame as a frontier hero.
McLaird does a good job of uncovering the real Calamity Jane and explaining how her myth was built up through Western dime novels and newspaper reporters, thirsty for good stories. For example, stories about Calamity the camp follower turned into her being a scout for the army. As her legend grew, the stories became even more farcical. Later in life Calamity cashed in on these stories to garner sympathy and support from others. But ultimately she died young, most likely simply from alcoholism.
The downfall to this biography is twofold. First, the author could have cited other writers that discuss the process of Western myth building and incorporated that into his thesis. Secondly, the prose is very matter of fact and rather bland. I found the topic fascinating but the writing style a bit boring, so at times the biography gets a little tedious and academic.
Nevertheless, it does offer another solid academic work on Western myth building, with Calamity Jane maybe the biggest farce of them all.
Packed with depth and detail on known facts and you won't find a better coverage elsewhere.......2005-12-06
Calamity Jane is a major figure in Western history so it's not surprising numerous titles have been written about her previously: what is surprising is that Calamity Jane: The Woman And The Legend has so much new material to reveal. Here's the definitive biography of one Martha Canary, written by one of the best modern authorities and packed with meticulous research. McLaird had to study conflicting accounts of her life and adventures to arrive at the truth: Calamity Jane comes packed with depth and detail on known facts and you won't find a better coverage elsewhere.
Average customer rating:
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BRANDENBURG DIVISION: Commandos of the Reich (Special Operations Series)
Eric Lefevre
Manufacturer: Histoire and Collections
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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| World War II
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ASIN: 2908182734 |
Book Description
In addition to its well-known conventional troops like the panzers, panzergrenadiers and paratroopers, the German armed forces in World War II also made extensive use of special forces units, concentrated in the Brandenburg Division.
Their use of foreign uniforms and other tactics were clear violations of the rules of war, but the influence of the Brandenburg Division on later special operations around the world is obvious.
Book Description
This book looks at the peculiar ethical demands in the policing and corrections professions, with particular emphasis on sub-cultural constraints, and how loyalty to colleagues can sometimes cause a sacrifice of individuality. It contains a unique discussion on whether ethics can be taught, covers sensitive, real-life moral dilemmas and the ever-increasing ethical demands placed upon police and corrections professionals. For Chiefs of Police, Jail Wardens/Superintendents, and Principals of Justice Academies.
Book Description
The picture of crime that dominates the popular imagination is one of unambiguous wrong-doing - manifestly harmful acts that are clearly worthy of condemnation. The accompanying picture of the criminal - the thief, the murderer - is a picture of society's failures - to be cast out and re-integrated through a process of punishment and penance. Our understanding of white-collar crime, by contrast, is pervaded by moral and imaginative ambiguity. Such crimes are committed by society's success stories, by the rich and the powerful, and frequently have no visible victim at their root. The problem of marrying these disparate pictures has led to a confusion of the boundaries of white-collar crime. How is it possible to distinguish criminal fraud from mere lawful "puffing", tax evasion from "tax avoidance", insider trading from "savvy investing", obstruction of justice from "zealous advocacy", bribery from "log rolling", and extortion from "hard bargaining"? How should we, as scholars and students, lawyers and judges, law enforcement officials and the general public, distinguish the lawful from the unlawful, the civil from the criminal? In the first in-depth study of its kind, Stuart Green exposes the ambiguities and uncertainties that pervade the white-collar crimes, and offers an approach to their solution. Drawing on recent cases involving such figures as Martha Stewart, Bill Clinton, Tom DeLay, Scooter Libby, Jeffrey Archer, Enron's Kenneth Lay and Andrew Fastow, and the Arthur Anderson accounting firm, Green weaves together disparate threads of the criminal code to reveal a complex and fascinating web of moral insights about the nature of guilt and innocence and what, fundamentally, constitutes conduct worthy of punishment by criminal sanction. Green argues that white-collar crime is best understood through a framework of everyday moral concepts that include not only lying, cheating and stealing, but also coercion, exploitation, disloyalty, promise-breaking, disobediance, and other forms of deception. In the process, he reveals the essentially moral fabric underlying the legal category of white-collar crime.
Customer Reviews:
White Collar Crime Student.......2006-04-28
This is a detailed, well written and easily readible work on the core white collar crimes. From perjury to bribery to obstruction of justice Lying, Cheating, and Stealing is a clever and timely comment on the crimes of the privileged. I read the book for a White Collar Crime seminar at Michigan Law School, which Professor Green taught. Frankly, both the book and the class were worth the price of admission.
Average customer rating:
- Concentrated proposal to deal with Crowded Prisons
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Convicted: New Hope for Ending America's Crime Crisis
Charles Colson , and
Daniel Van Ness
Manufacturer: Crossway Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0891075062 |
Customer Reviews:
Concentrated proposal to deal with Crowded Prisons.......2001-01-25
Colson and Van Dess provide a short, but loaded analysis of the overcrowding of the penal institutions, and call for basically a two-part solution. Calling prisons "graduate schools in crime" rather than places of rehab and punishment, they suggest nonvilent offenders to pay back society for their rehab and reinstitution among society, while prisons and punishment are withheld for the violent. Thus, overcrowding solved and rehab can occur.
Biblical support given, for this God's agenda as well. So relevant to the talk now going on among us with a new national administration taking office.
Book Description
This text provides readers with the information needed to solve ethical dilemmas within the complicated criminal justice system. It begins with a straightforward presentation of the major ethical systems followed by a discussion of moral development and the ideal of justice. The book includes not only philosophical information but practical applications as well, because of the issue-based approach, which allows each student to make individual decisions.
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Morals, Rights and Practice in the Human Services: Effective and Fair Decision-Making in Health, Social Care and Criminal Justice
Marie Connolly
Manufacturer: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1843104865 |
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The Safety Utopia: Contemporary Discontent and Desire as to Crime and Punishment
H. Boutellier
Manufacturer: Springer
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1402023979 |
Book Description
This book is about senseless violence and silent marches, about politics of decency and child pornography (and particularly about our abhorrence of it), about religion and living on the edge, about victims and offenders in that order, and especially about crime and punishment.
The Safety Utopia is a diagnosis of modern culture. Fighting crime has become part of a general desire for safety resulting from a combination of real risks and a vital lifestyle.
The Safety Utopia describes the implicit hope that vitality and safety can come together. This longing is an illusion and it is not without danger - a utopia is also a power fantasy in which control and punishment play a major role. A great deal is expected from criminal law, but that can hardly bring a safety utopia any closer. The utopian desire gives an impulse to moral renewal and community forming. Safety unites, but how? That is the crucial question of our time.
This book will be of interest to those working in the areas of criminology, sociology, philosophy, criminal law and punishment, and cultural studies. It will also be of interest to policymakers working in Police and Justice Departments.
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Teaching Criminal Justice Ethics: Strategic Issues
Manufacturer: Anderson Pub Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0870848313 |
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Mumia Abu-Jamal and the US Criminal Injustice System.(Statistical Data Included): An article from: Synthesis/Regeneration
Steve Bloom
Manufacturer: WD Press
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ASIN: B0008I3NU8
Release Date: 2005-07-28 |
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Synthesis/Regeneration, published by WD Press on June 22, 2001. The length of the article is 1732 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Mumia Abu-Jamal and the US Criminal Injustice System.(Statistical Data Included)
Author: Steve Bloom
Publication:
Synthesis/Regeneration (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2001
Publisher: WD Press
Page: 15
Article Type: Statistical Data Included
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
Defending the Earth brings together two of the main protagonists in the heated deep vs. social ecology debate. Growing out of a joint public meeting sponsored by the Learning Alliance, this book provides an important answer to the question, "Whither the radical ecology movement?" In it, longtime eco-philosopher Murray Bookchin and Earth First co-founder Dave Foreman seek common ground and cooperatively explore their differing, though often overlapping, perspectives on a wide range of issues: environmental ethics, social justice, nature philosophy, and the best strategies for radical ecological activism. The results of this unusual dialogue are both surprising and hopeful.
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The Real Deadwood: True Life Histories of Will Bill Hickock, Calamity Jane, Outlaw Towns, and Other Characters of the Lawless West
Calamity Jane
Old Deadwood Days
They Called Him Wild Bill
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