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The last decade of the 19th century was, for some Americans, a time when great fortunes were to be made. For many others, however, the period was a time of economic dislocation, when the gap between city and countryside, rich and poor, grew ever wider. As the Indian Wars ended and the Gilded Age extended into America's first Imperial Age, social critics such as Mark Twain and William Dean Howells began to examine the dark side of the American dream: violence, poverty, degenerate behavior, suicide, and insanity.
In the late 1960s, another desperate time, historian Michael Lesy took a long look at fin-de-siècle America. Examining a collection of several thousand glass plate negatives and historical documents from Jackson County, Wisconsin, he concocted a sprawling treatise on a past that had been willfully forgotten, a brooding rejoinder to Edgar Lee Masters's Spoon River Anthology. First published in 1973, Lesy's Wisconsin Death Trip, now reissued in a handsome paperbound edition, became a key text of the counterculture, a book to shelve alongside Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and Custer Died for Your Sins--and it sometimes reads like a hip product of its time. Lesy documents the unsettling record of one small corner of rural America, turning up accounts of barn burnings, attacks by gangs of armed tramps, threatening and obscene letters, death by diphtheria and smallpox (the Wisconsin townsfolk had, some years, to attend several funerals a week), alcoholism, madness, business and bank failures, and even a case or two of witchcraft.
After reading Lesy's texts and viewing the sometimes unsettling images he's turned up, you would be forgiven for thinking that no one in small-town Wisconsin in our great-great-grandparents' time was well-adjusted--which is, of course, not the case. Hyperbole notwithstanding, this is a remarkable study, one that Lesy himself rightly calls an experiment in both history and alchemy. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
First published in 1973, this remarkable book about life in a small turn-of-the-century Wisconsin town has become a cult classic. Lesy has collected and arranged photographs taken between 1890 and 1910 by a Black River Falls photographer, Charles Van Schaik.
A shocking portrait of a small town crumbling—socially, morally, physically and emotionally—under the impact of the great depression of the 1890s. This “cult classic” is now available again in paperback.
Customer Reviews:
Accurate,but not singular.......2007-06-14
"Wisconsin death trip"is an accurate documentation,not only of "agrarian white"culture at the end of the 19th century but,in many ways,the whole of white culture in america at that time..Contrary to popular belief,the"good"old days were not really so good..Yes,they may well have been less complex,but infant mortality was very high,illnesses which today are highly treatable being killers not only of children but of adults as well,daily life being,for most,a drudgery,with little to show for one's efforts...There were few saftey nets,no antibiotics,no pensions to speak of,no recourse against the harshness life,or against a system that,like today,favors the wealthy..
Insanity was not understood,and "treatment"such as it was,often did little to help the afflicted...Wisconsin did not have a monopoly on such things,anymore than,say,los angles has a monopoly on street gangs,or newark has a monopoly on ghetto housing...
The novelty is perhaps in the seeing of the photographs and the documents all together in one volume,so that one can peruse the sorrowful aspects of that period as it affected one particular area...
Wisconsin Death Trio.......2007-01-19
This is an interesting and slightly macabre book which is strangely beautiful. My son, who is Sam Witt, the poet, told me about it because he had been so moved by it that he wrote a poem associated with it in his soon to be published book, SUNFLOWER BROTHER. The old photos are stunning from the horses to the dead children. I am hoping to get the dvd soon.
American Gothic Death Rattle.......2006-12-15
I read this book over 16 years ago. It left a lasting impression that will stay with me forever. It may not have the same affect on others but reading some of the reviews posted here, I know that it has on most. You can't really ask somebody "did this really happen?" becuase they either died then or in the 100 years that have past. We have no perspective on these people, places and times other than to read books like this. If any of these folks were alive today and heard someone say, "those were the good old days." They might be inclined to give the speaker a quick education. This book will do it for them. I have pictures just like this in a family archive. You wonder how anybody lived into middle or old age. Disease, starvation, hypothermia, and farm accidents all took their toll. Winters are hard enough in the south. Why did these people decide to stop the wagon in Wisconsin or if they lived thru their first winter there, why didn't they head south? I went to a Brewers baseball game at the end of May some 25 years ago and wore a down parka and was cold. You can still see houses in small towns outside of Milwaukee that look like the houses in this book and you can feel the desolation, pain and suffering looking out at you thru 100 year old panes of glass.
My Favorite Book.......2006-12-03
"The pictures you're about to see are of people who were once actually alive." So begins historian Michael Lesy's masterpiece - a by turns touching and disturbing examination of life and death in a small Wisconsin town during the final 15 years of the nineteenth century. Lesy stumbled across a cache of 30,000 glass plate images made by a local town photographer named Charley Van Schaick and spools of microfilm from the local newspaper - and combined the most compelling of these images and newspaper excerpts to create a vivid examination of Victorian prairie life. Although there are numerous post-mortem memorial photographs to add morbid appeal to the book, the newspaper and insane asylum excerpts are what I find absolutely enthralling. If ever anyone tries to suggest to you that times were better "before", you might want to refer them to these matter-of-fact tales of murder, suicide, insanity, and lethal pestilence. Death was a constant threat and entire families of 6 children could be wiped out by diptheria in a matter of days. It's no wonder that so many were driven to suicide: the depth of despair that these people must have gone through is at times palpable.
To give you an idea of the sort of macabre fascinations you can find in these olde newspapers, here are some excerpts:
"The 60 year old wife of a farmer in Jackson, Washington County, killed herself by cutting her throat with a sheep shears"
"Mrs. James Baty... died suddenly of a hemorrhage of the lungs. She leaves a husband, her family of 6 children having died of diptheria last summer"
"Mrs. John Larson... drowned her 3 children in Lake St. Croix during a fit of insanity... Mrs. Larson imagines that devils pursue her"
And my personal favorite:
"Mrs. Carter... was taken sick at the marsh last week and fell down, sustaining internal injuries which have dethroned her reason. She has been removed to her home here and a few nights since arose from her bed and ran through the woods... A night or two after she was found trying to strangle herself with a towel... It is hoped the trouble is only temporary and that she may soon recover her mind"
You don't see entries like that in newspapers anymore!!
Old Photographs and Newspaper Clippings.......2005-09-25
Michael Lesy combined his work as a photographer and a historian to produce this book as his Ph.D. thesis at Rutgers University in 1973. From around the 1940s media censorship presented American history like the 1890s as "The Good Old Days", a time of happiness and prosperity, like the magazine covers illustrated by Norman Rockwell. Many historians believe there was a "major crisis in American life during the 1890s". This refers to the worst economic depression in American history. This book is an antidote to that manufactured propaganda myths. The problem with creating a book from unknown photographs and random newspaper clippings is the lack of a unifying outlook. By not telling about the context of those times the book continues that cover-up. There is no explanation to diet, drugs, hunger, malnutrition, poverty, alcoholism, syphilis and other causes of the mental illnesses listed here. Presenting only such news distorts history. Similar news is usually censored nowadays, unless it is part of a reported crime. Back in the 1950s the local newspaper used to have a back page with such news. Many of the items were for men indicted "for unlawful carnal knowledge". The editing of newspapers stories must represent a tiny portion of those twenty years, as realistic as items from a weekly tabloid newspaper.
If you hear talk about "the good old days" you should know that life then was often "short, mean, and nasty". If we neglect this lesson of history will these times reoccur? Look and see for yourself. One thing is different. Suicide is rarely mentioned in the newspapers, they call it "died at home" in the obituary columns. You are seven times more likely to die of suicide than murder at home in America. Children are always safer in school than at home.
The dates on the newspaper items for "1885-6" suggest it was a weekly. The 'Conclusions' recalls and mocks the science of yesteryear. Is fiction like "The Jukes" repeated in today's books? What will the future say about the psycho-babble here? Lesy is wrong in imagining that the suicides and murders in the rural country were not occurring in the city. Lesy's comments about "paranoia" and psychology seem like a compulsion for a historian. Is this a fitting ending to his work? There is no mention of food and diet here, even while scientific research was examining the causes of pellagra! Now that Lesy is older and wiser, how would he rate this book? Why are there no page numbers?
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Wisconsin Death Trip
Static X Cswarn 47656
Manufacturer: WARNER/REPRISE/MAVERICK
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette
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ASIN: 6305711755 |
Book Description
A good primer on what will almost certainly be the major foreign policy problem of our time.
--Contemporary Sociology
Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Liberia, Somalia, Azerbaijan, El Salvador, Northern Ireland, Lebanon, Cambodia -- all provide bloody evidence that civil wars continue to have a powerful impact on the international scene. Because they tear at the very fabric of a society and pit countryman against countryman, civil wars are often the most brutal and difficult to extinguish -- witness the American Revolution.
And yet, civil wars do inevitably end. England is no longer criss-crossed by warring armies representing York and Lancaster or King and Parliament. The French no longer kill one another over the divine right of kings. Argentines seem reconciled to living in a single state, rather than several. The ideologies of the Spanish Civil War now seem largely irrelevant. And the possibility of Southern secession is an issue long-buried in the American past.
The question then begs itself: how do people who have been killing one another with considerable enthusiasm and success come together to form a common government? How can individuals and factions work together, politically and economically, with others who have killed their friends, parents, children and lovers? How are armed societies disarmed? What effect does a total military victory have on a lasting peace? In sum, how are civil societies constructed from civil violence and chaos? This is the central concern of
Stopping the Killing.
In this highly original and much needed volume, a distinguished group of experts on civil wars discuss both specific conflicts and broader theoretical issues. Individual chapters examine civil wars in Colombia, the Sudan, Yemen, America, Greece, and Nigeria, and analyze the causes of peace, the relationship between the battlefield and the negotiating table, and issues of settlement. An introduction and conclusion by the editor unify the volume. Contributors include: Jonathan Hartlyn (Univ. of North Carolina), Caroline Hartzell (Univ. of California, Davis), Jane E. Holl (U.S. Military Academy), John Iatrides (Southern Connecticut State University), James O'Connell (University of Bradford), Donald Rothchild (Univ. of California, Davis), Stephen John Stedman (Johns Hopkins Univ.), Robert Harrison Wagner (Univ. of Texas, Austin), Harvey Waterman (Rutgers Univ.), Manfred Wenner (Northern Illinois Univ.), and I. William Zartman (Johns Hopkins Univ.).
Customer Reviews:
The Best.......2000-03-31
this book was very very good with a lot of informations and helpful. it helped me a lot on my research paper for my history class. at first, i had a really hard time trying to find informations about what ended the war and how it ended, but when i got to this, it gave me so much informations. which was a really good thing because i thought i wasn't gonna be able to find anything on how the war ended or what ended the war.
Book Description
This engaging book sketches an intimate portrait of the life of Wang Fucheng, an illiterate peasant who served for thirty years as Communist party secretary of an impoverished village on the north China plain. Born in 1923, Wang Fucheng rose under the Communists from extreme poverty to a position of power and prestige in his village. His account provides a fascinating illustration of the process of social mobility during the Maoist era, the interaction between central and local leaders, and the way central policies were adapted at the village level.
Customer Reviews:
Some problems of this book.......2007-04-05
I can hardly say this is not a good book. Actually I have used this book in my modern China course and my students love it! However, I gradually found its problems: the book is based on the interviews Professor Seybolt gave to Wang Fucheng, an illiterate village leader and CCP party member about his life experience over the years. I understand the reason why an illiterate farmer Wang Fucheng was chosen was becuase the author wants to avoid the overconcentration on the social elite's response to China's social upheaval, as many works tend to do. However, the price the author pays is that the narrator in this book basically lacks a critical and analytical ability to explain the rural life after 1949. During the Great Leap Forward, he simply let villagers grow turnip so they escaped famine; during the cultural revolution, he soon restored his leardership after several struggle sessions; In the "Criticize Lin Biao and criticize Confucius Campaign", Wang went as far as to think that Confucius was a big landlord in a nearby village! after the Cultural Revolution, he loves Deng's reform policy...It seems that Wang Fucheng so easily survived all turmoils and he never questions anything but just happily adapts himself to any situation and felt complacent---this reminds people of Zhang Yimou's To Live---yes just live on without reflection.
The author's limitation of access to true feeling of the people is obvious---as a party member and rural cadre, Wang Fucheng would never tell an American interviewer his suspision of Mao or distaste of the government, even if there is any. He must use self-censorship to ensure that whatever he tells an American is politically correct. Thus, what he tells in the book might all be true, but not all truths have been told. The question of authenticity should be considered when reading this type of books that are based on interviews between Americans and Chinese citizens who know too well what they can say while what not!
A much better work about rural Chinese feelings is "Chen Village under Mao and Deng", I think. Only in the latter can you find the diverse and rich inner world of Chinese peasants. They are not just "living" in a rosy picture but also think, criticize, hate and doubt...
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Pacific Affairs, published by University of British Columbia on June 22, 1997. The length of the article is 553 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: Throwing the Emperor from His Horse: Portrait of a Village Leader in China, 1923-1995.(Brief Article)
Author: Jonathan Unger
Publication:
Pacific Affairs (Refereed)
Date: June 22, 1997
Publisher: University of British Columbia
Volume: v70
Issue: n2
Page: p267(2)
Article Type: Book Review, Brief Article
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
In 1993, Alan Rabinowitz, called "the Indiana Jones" of wildlife science by The New York Times, arrived for the first time in the country of Myanmar, known until 1989 as Burma, uncertain of what to expect. Working under the auspices of the Wildlife Conservation Society, his goal was to establish a wildlife research and conservation program and to survey the country's wildlife. He succeeded beyond all expectations, not only discovering a species of primitive deer completely new to science but also playing a vital role in the creation of Hkakabo Razi National Park, now one of Southeast Asia's largest protected areas.
Beyond the Last Village takes the reader on a journey of exploration, danger, and discovery in this remote corner of the planet at the southeast edge of the Himalayas where tropical rain forest and snow-covered mountains meet. As we travel through this "lost world" -- a mysterious and forbidding region isolated by ancient geologic forces -- we meet the Rawang, a former slave group, the Taron, a solitary enclave of the world's only pygmies of Asian ancestry, and Myanmar Tibetans living in the furthest reaches of the mountains. We enter the territories of strange, majestic-looking beasts that few people have ever heard of and fewer have ever seen -- golden takin, red goral, blue sheep, black barking deer. The survival of these ancient species is now threatened, not by natural forces but by hunters with snares and crossbows, trading body parts for basic household necessities.
The powerful landscape and unique people the author befriends help him come to grips with the traumas and difficulties of his past and emerge a man ready to embrace the world anew. Interwoven with his scientific expedition in Myanmar, and helping to inform his understanding of the people he met and the situations he encountered, is this more personal journey of discovery.
Customer Reviews:
A great book from a true conservation pioneer.......2006-01-22
This is really an inspiring book. While some people debate whether any environmental work in Burma is worth it, Rabinowitz shows how through perseverance and dedication one can make a positive difference in Burma. I appreciate how open and honest he is. Rabinowitz does not emerge as a hero or saint (as some of his emotions may belie), but he does come across as an true and decent person.
I only wish he updated the book to include his more recent adventures in Burma.
Wonderful Story.......2004-01-01
I really enjoyed this book. The way Mr. Rabinowitz intertwined his experiences in Myanamar with his own internal conflicts really personalized the story and captivated me as a reader. I also found his experiences with the Taron amazing - imagine seeing and interacting with the last of a group of humans before their extinction. One of the important ideas which I gained from this book is the idea that animals need to come first when a National Park is created. He showed what happens when the needs of the people living the area come first - extinction! At the same time he is careful to note that if the people living in the area are not given an alternative to their current way of life - no park will suceed. The world needs more Alan Rabinowitz's.
A good book.......2003-12-25
This was a good book, I think Jaguar was his best book but I liked this one. It must have been amazing to have trekked across such unknown wilderness and interact with the local villagers and see a part of the world that virtually no western eyes have seen. It must have been extremely difficult to deal with the reality of overexploitation of wildlife to trade for something as mundane as salt. Rabinowitz doesn't paint the local people as uncaring monsters. They are just trying to make a life for themselves and their families.
I would have like a few photographs of the animals, but this isn't a field guide. Overall the book was very good. I liked the way the Dr. Rabinowitz made the point that if any conservation effort is going to have even the smallest chance of being successful the local government and more importantly the local people need to be involved from day one.
great adventure.......2003-01-18
Massachusetts Sierran, March 2002
Diana Muir
Alan Rabinowitz has the best day job in America. The Bronx Zoo pays him to fly to parts of the world that have been off-limits to western scientists for generations. He assembles a team and walks into the forest where he treks beyond the point at which effective government ends, beyond the last road negotiable by Land Rover, beyond the last village. He comes back to report the existence of new species of large mammals previously unknown to science. Then he arranges to have vast tracks of wild land set off as protected nature reserves.
Rabinowitz works for the organization that runs the Bronx Zoo, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and he doesn't actually find an entirely new species of large mammal every time he steps into the bush. But the delicate Burmese leaf deer he discovered for science in 1997 is flourishing in forests that his Burmese scientific and administrative collaborators are working to conserve. Their efforts have resulted in the protection of 3.2% of the land area of Myanmar as national parkland or wildlife refuge. And the adventures in Myanmar recounted in Beyond the Last Village are merely the latest exploits in a career spent mapping the last refuges of the nearly extinct Sumatran rhino, tracking tigers in Thailand, and determining how large a jaguar preserve need be to succeed in preserving jaguar.
No one is perfect. Rabinowitz has a great story to tell, but he attempts to combine a sensitve exploration of his inner self with real-life adventures that play like an Indiana Jones movie. The outcome can be bad enough to make you wince. Here is Rabinowitz, the sensitive male, awaiting the birth of his child.
"The due date came and went, and I was surprised at how rattled I was. I had helped deliver a Mayan baby in the back of a pickup truck on a bumpy dirt road in southern Belize. I had sewn up my dog, Cleo, after his neck was ripped open by a jaguar. I had ridden for help on a motorcycle in Thailand with a broken leg and a bamboo stake through my foot. I had had to find my way out of the jungle with a subdural hematoma after a plane crash. But nothing compared to this. This was my child."
When Rabinowitz discovers a species unknown to science, he takes evidence to the Director of Genetics at the Bronx Zoo for expert confirmation. If he had taken the account of his trip to a professional writer for similarly expert help he would have a best seller on his hands. Make no mistake, Rabinowitz has a first-rate story to tell. The sort of story that might have reached millions of readers around the world and persuaded them of the importance of saving the world's last wild places. Instead we have a book that is almost wonderful.
This is a great read nevertheless because Rabinowitz is the real deal. He goes to places where we cannot go and sees things that we would never see. Had I somehow gotten permission to hike into upland forests of Myanmar off limits to outsiders, I would have seen some pretty little deer. Rabinowitz saw an undescribed species. And while the writing may be clunky, the adventure is real.
E. O. Wilson's new book, The Future of Life, is an elegant statement of the importance of preserving the biodiversity of this planet by protecting large, intact ecosystems from exploitation. Rabinowitz takes the problem down to cases.
His new species of leaf dear, along with bear, tiger, rhino and a bevy of southeast Asian species whose names I failed even to recognize, are endangered by poverty, and by a voracious Chinese appetite for bogus medicine and chimerical aphrodisiacs. Sometimes it can take surprisingly little to save them.
In the remote highlands of Myanmar Rabinowitz and his Burmese colleague, Dr. U Saw Tun Khaing, discovered villages with no access to salt. The only way that they could obtain this vital commodity was by hunting and selling wildlife parts to Chinese traders. Rhino, the species most prized by credulous Chinese men, were extirpated in the area decades ago.
Dr. Khaing has now set up a system in which payment in salt and other goods is made to villages that preserve the wildlife around them. Erstwhile hunters are employed as game monitors with the cost picked up by the Wildlife Conservation Society. Salt and self-interest will surely do more to induce local people to preserve game than any number of wardens could.
The pity is that poachers serving the Chinese market continue to hunt Asian rhino elsewhere. My son, the college student, suggests that the only way to protect the last wild Asian rhinos from poachers is to provide free Viagra to every middle-aged man in China. He just might be right. Meanwhile, I'm glad that Alan Rabinowitz is on the job.
Alan's third book and third best.......2002-12-28
Alan has a wonderful gift for expressing his expeditions and emotional journeys on paper. He can set you in the middle of his trails and make you feel his inner turmoils and exhilerations. Although Jaguar was by far his best book, this one should not be missed. I will be anxiouxly awaiting his next journey and book.
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Paradise Lost. (Topical Reviews).: An article from: American Scientist
Manufacturer: Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
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ASIN: B0008ESJLK
Release Date: 2005-07-29 |
Books:
- Witness: For the Prosecution of Scott Peterson
- A Lifetime in Every Moment
- A Man Called Peter: The Story of Peter Marshall
- A Passion to Win
- Akiane: Her Life, Her Art, Her Poetry
- Albert Einstein: Out of My Later Years Through His Own Words
- All Encompassing Trip
- All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes
- America Is in the Heart: A Personal History (Washington Paperbacks, Wp-68)
- American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson
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Wisconsin Death Trip
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