Ghost Light: A Memoir

Amazon.com

When Frank Rich was an anxious, unhappy kid marooned in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., the fact his parents were divorced was discussed "only in the whisper that Grandma Ross used when talking about being Jewish or having cancer." Like so many others who feel painfully different, Frank found refuge in the theater, particularly the classic musicals of Broadway's golden age. After an enchanted trip to see Bells Are Ringing in 1956 when he was 7, Rich writes, "I was now destined to trace my childhood almost exclusively through an accelerating progression of plays, good and bad, that would captivate and kidnap me." Many of the tickets came from his stepfather, who was sometimes generous and fun but often frighteningly abusive. Once again, the theater helped him cope: when Frank saw Gypsy, its portrait of troubled family relations "made me feel less lonely." Similarly, when chronicling his attendance at such legendary shows as Bye Bye Birdie, Fiddler on the Roof, and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, among many others, Rich concentrates on his responses rather than the productions themselves. What interests him most here is the theater's power to shape lives. Paying tribute to the men who both shared and cultivated his passion for the theater, Rich draws touching portraits of Scott Kirkpatrick, manager of Washington's National Theatre, who hired young Frank as a ticket taker, and of Clayton Coots, a company manager who befriended him. Those who admired (or excoriated) Rich's work as drama critic for The New York Times will find Ghost Light an intriguing look at the personal history that lies behind his critical judgments. --Wendy Smith

Book Description

There is a superstition that if an emptied theater is ever left completely dark, a ghost will take up residence. To prevent this, a single "ghost light" is left burning at center stage after the audience and all of the actors and musicians have gone home. Frank Rich's eloquent and moving boyhood memoir reveals how theater itself became a ghost light and a beacon of security for a child finding his way in a tumultuous world.

Rich grew up in the small-townish Washington, D.C., of the 1950s and early '60s, a place where conformity seemed the key to happiness for a young boy who always felt different. When Rich was seven years old, his parents separated--at a time when divorce was still tantamount to scandal--and thereafter he and his younger sister were labeled "children from a broken home." Bouncing from school to school and increasingly lonely, Rich became terrified of the dark and the uncertainty of his future. But there was one thing in his life that made him sublimely happy: the Broadway theater.

Rich's parents were avid theatergoers, and in happier times they would listen to the brand-new recordings of South Pacific, Damn Yankees, and The Pajama Game over and over in their living room. When his mother's remarriage brought about turbulent changes, Rich took refuge in these same records, re-creating the shows in his imagination, scene by scene. He started collecting Playbills, studied fanatically the theater listings in The New York Times and Variety, and cut out ads to create his own miniature marquees. He never imagined that one day he would be the Times's chief theater critic.

Eventually Rich found a second home at Wash-ington's National Theatre, where as a teenager he was a ticket-taker and was introduced not only to the backstage magic he had dreamed of for so long but to a real-life cast of charismatic and eccentric players who would become his mentors and friends. With humor and eloquence, Rich tells the triumphant story of how the aspirations of a stagestruck young boy became a lifeline, propelling him toward the itinerant family of theater, whose romantic denizens welcomed him into the colorful fringes of Broadway during its last glamorous era.

Every once in a while, a grand spectacle comes along that introduces its audiences to characters and scenes that will resound in their memories long after the curtain has gone down. Ghost Light, Frank Rich's beautifully crafted childhood memoir, is just such an event.

Customer Reviews:

This author was given a lot of freedom.......2007-08-29

I can't believe how much time this author spent unsupervised in NYC. Memoir? seems a bit far fetched to me.

rich memories.......2007-05-19

Ghost Light by Frank Rich; Random House, 2001. New York.

Frank Rich's memoir, Ghost Light, embodies the feelings of hopelessness and struggle one undergoes in childhood; Rich writes about these feelings with a wisdom that could have been gained only by experience. The author begins the novel with his early childhood, which rivaled "Leave it to Beaver" in the perfection and blissful ignorance in which he and his younger sister came to perceive as "normal." Somerset, Maryland was a typical 1950's suburban neighborhood, where new parents came to raise their families with high hopes of a new life filled with prosperity and contentment. While given all the props and the perfect setting to carry out a happy family life, Frank's parents "dropped in and out of the role of parents at whim, like novice actors improvising from a script still in rough draft." His parents did share an intense love of music however, and often incorporated it into the lives of Frank and his sister, Polly. He grew up listening to the captivating and consuming music of shows like South Pacific and The Pajama Game. Thus began his love of the shows on Broadway, and the escape they brought him later in life.
All too soon, Frank's fairytale childhood comes crashing to an end when his parents introduce a new word into his vocabulary, one that had never been spoken about in a voice louder than a whisper in his sheltered neighborhood, and one that had been as shunned and feared as the plague all around the country: Divorce. In a new apartment, new neighborhood, and new school the young Frank realizes a new terror, insomnia. In the dark of his room, while all is quiet, Frank has no choice but to think about the gaping hole in his heart which family used to fill. These restless nights lead to an insatiable rage that fills him until he erupts in a fury of destruction and tantrums. Frank soon learns to internalize his feelings for the sake of his desolate and distant mother. Eventually Frank's mother finds a new man, Joel. His step-father is unlike any person Frank or Polly has ever met, he is loud, obnoxious, and demands the best of everyone. His own two children, John and Sue, are already familiar with the way Joel behaves when he doesn't get his way, but the first time Frank is hit for disobeying an order, he is shocked and dismayed that his mother married this monster. Along with the bad, Joel brings a great deal of good to Frank's life. He opens up a whole new world for Frank, taking spontaneous trips to town or overseas, demanding the best in restaurants, and most importantly, giving him the opportunity to go to the shows on Broadway and off, which later become Frank's life.
Rich documents his life and his growing passion for theater, his only distraction in a house where he is never certain of safety. He narrates his own story as his new family moves to Washington, as he meets his first girlfriend, and is accepted into college. All the while theater keeps him going, he collects Playbills, listens to every musical record he can get his hands on, and gets a job in the local theater as an usher.
This book personifies the feelings of anguish and hopelessness that everyone has felt at one point or another in their life and gives character to the universal joy of theater. I found this book to be unique in the blatant and honest portrayal of a child dealing with divorce and a violent stepfather in a time when things like that were not talked about publicly. Rich tells the story of an escape in theater that saved his sanity and preserved his faith in humankind.

Life begins in the theatre.......2007-05-06

This is a beautifully written, sensitive memoir of a painful childhood and coming of age. Anyone who has ever listened to the original cast album of a Broadway show and been transported in their mind to a theatre will find a kindred spirit in Frank Rich. Rich grew up in a home which had an abundance of material goods but also contained an abundance of pain. His love of the theatre and some lovely people he met along the way helped him to endure until he went away to college and his adult life.
Mr. Rich was for many years the very astute theatre critic for the New York Times. He now writes incisive OpEd pieces for the Times. This memoir is very courageous in light of the private pain that it reveals which helped to mold this public man.

Saving Mr. Rich.......2006-06-01

Ghost Light is a compelling memoir about the life of Frank Rich, the acclaimed theater critic for the New York Times and long time theater lover. The memoir commences when Frank is ten years old; he is living in Somerset, a model neighborhood. Frank's parents get a divorce and in this 1950s setting, divorce was something that was simply not acceptable. Throughout Frank's entire life, his parent's divorce affected him in so many ways. Frank was forced to move away with his mother and sister, Polly, away from Somerset, the one thing in his life that seemed regular at that time. Frank, his mother, and sister are constantly moving until his mother gets remarried to a man named Joel. Frank, Polly, Frank's mother, and Joel all settle down together in Washington, D.C. In the end, Joel proves to be abusive both physically and mentally. He beats Frank constantly and makes his mother cry every night. Although Frank does not realize this at the time, Joel turns out to be a very important person of Frank's life. Joel was a lawyer with many connections, especially with airlines. These connections allowed Frank and his family to travel all around the world, something that they would not have been able to do if Joel had not come into his life: "Each time Gypsy reached Tulsa's song, I tried to fill in more details in the story it told. What did the dance look like? How old was Tulsa? What did Louise and June look like? Did he ever get his nightclub act?" (110). Frank's writing through out the entire book continues with this curious attitude. Frank is constantly questioning the shows and aspects of his life around him. From all of his `curiousness' he is able to find more meaning both in the shows and in his life. Ghost Light is an accurate account of how a young boy's life was saved by the theater.
Through all of the harsh changes in Frank's life, he always has a home at the theater. The theater became an obsession for Frank even before his parent's divorce. His father used to bring home records to Broadway shows, and Frank would sit and listen to them for hours, memorizing every lyric, imagining what the show would look like in real life. As Frank became older, the theater became a way for Frank to escape from the everyday traumas of growing up in a "broken home". As Frank's life gets more distressing, he relies further on the theater as his haven. Frank went into every little detail about countless shows, from Gypsy to The Music Man to Mr. President. Frank went into detail about many shows that I have not seen because they are no longer running and I thought that it was really interesting to compare the theater of today to the theater of the 1950s and 60s. As Frank grows as a person, his knowledge in theater also grows; he starts collecting Playbills to both shows that he has seen and others that he hasn't seen that were discarded in the trash. Frank starts reading Variety, a popular magazine filled with reviews of all of the current Broadway shows; he is able to get a lot of information about the shows from this magazine. Frank also reads the scripts of many of the shows. Following the theater so closely helps Frank have something concrete in his life since everything else seems to be changing so much.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. At times, it was a bit slow to read, and some parts were more graphic than I would have liked, but every time I picked it up, I got lost in the story. This book is a very intriguing account of a young boy's life in the 1950s which was very interesting to see what it was like, since I am a child of the next generation. Ghost Light taught me many new things about the theater that I had not known before. As a lover of theater myself, it was really wonderful to follow the theater in such an intricate way. I felt myself growing as a person while Frank did just the same. I would recommend Ghost Light to anyone who enjoys the theater thoroughly and would like to see it from someone else's eyes.

A poignant memoir.......2001-08-03

Frank Rich's boyhood story was touching, and I found I couldn't put it down! He gave a very good account of how the theatre saved him from a very loney and confusing childhood. I was fascinated with the parallels he saw in his own life and the characters in the plays he enjoyed so much. The story is told through the eyes of a child. Mr. Rich does an excellent job of providing details of life in Washington during the late 60's and the people he met along the way, and the influence they had in his life, good or bad. I look forward to his next book.

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Ghost Light a Memoir
Frank Rich
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000X68P30

Book Description

Launched by the Third Reich in late 1944, the first ballistic missile, the V-2, fell on London, Paris, and Antwerp after covering nearly two hundred miles in five minutes. The design and construction of this daring and deadly advance in weaponry took place at the German rocket development center at Peenemünde, a remote island off the Baltic Coast. Now, Michael J. Neufeld gives the first comprehensive and accurate account of the story behind one of the greatest engineering feats of World War II. At a time when rockets were minor battlefield weapons, Germany ushered in a new form of warfare that would bequeath a long legacy of terror to the Cold War era and a tactical legacy that remains essential today. Both democracy's and communism's ballistic missile and space programs, as well as the SCUD and Patriot missiles of the Gulf War, began in the service of the Nazi State.

Customer Reviews:

Authoritive, but also too broad.......2005-06-20

This is an excellent book that goes into exceptional detail about the engineering process and technical feats of the V-2 development. It is one of the best books on the V-2's techincal development aspects, where others are quicker and focus more on the effects of the V-2 attacks.

For example, Neufeld discusses at length problems of weight distribution, fin control, fuel, guidance, and even telemetry. The V-2 was an incredibly complicated weapon to develop; a casual person might think that putting a warhead on something long with fins with a rocket engine was easy - it was not.

Several years after reading this book, I worked on US missile engineering programs; the V-2 lessons were applicable 50 years later.

I have two minor issues with this book; first, the discussions of slave labor, personal responsibility, etc. could arguably be saved for another book. Understanding that to ignore them would be revisionist, this should be first and foremost a book about the rocket's technical history. Even the political history gets to be a distraction. Second, as a technical book, it does not and should not have widespread appeal. While I personally found the technical history fascinating, it is clear that not everyone will.

If Neufeld were ever to rewrite these books, perhaps a two or three part series covering the technical, political, and sociological histories separately would help readers focus on the aspects of the Rocket and the Riech that interest them most.

The Dark Beginning of the Space Age.......2004-07-16

The two most important techonological developments of the Second World War were the Atomic Bomb and the V-2 ballistic missile.
The development of the V-2 by a group of German scientists, led by Wernher von Braun led directly to the space age and America's
successful effort to beat the USSR to a landing on the Moon. This book describes the efforts of von Braun and his team to build and operate the V-2. 3200 of these rockets were fired in anger, mostly at London and Antwerp. Von Braun and many from his team in Germany became prominent personalities in the Unites States space program, some of the well-known to the public at large. What is less well known is that the people who actually produced the rockets for operational use were part of an army of slaves who were terrorized, brutalized and murdered under the watchful eye of the dreaded SS.
It took nine years of development to get the V-2 to an operational status and the author describes the technological, administrative and political difficulties von Braun and his people faced. At one point, SS chief Heinrich Himmler tried to get control of the program as part of his "empire building". In order to accomplish this, he had Von Braun arrested for a short time. Von Braun's apologists in the US in later years pointed to this in order to whitewash his checkered background, claiming that he was really anti-Nazi. However, the author shows that his arrest had nothing to do with any "anti-Nazi" beliefs he may have had, but was simply part of Himmler's power play, made in order to pressure the heads of the program to agree to the SS's take-over attempt.
The author describes the horrors in which the slave-labor team worked in building and operating the Mittelwerk plant where the operational rockets were produced and the connections between this and von Braun's team. Von Braun is shown to have not had any direct connection with these atrocities, although he did hold the rank of Captain in the SS, but others, who later played a prominent role in the US space program, such as Arthur Rudolph had direct responsibility, which towards the end of his life, led to his depotation from the United States.
One of the most interesting points brought out in the book was the fact that the V-2 program ended up being a disaster for Nazi Germany. It was comparable in size and cost, relative to Germany's war economy, to the American Manhattan Project which successfully developed the A-bomb, yet the total weight of explosives sent by the V-2's was less than that delivered by a single large RAF bombing raid. The rocket program ate up scare resources that could have been better invested in other types of armaments. The major irony is that the ultimate benefit from this massive investment by the German taxpayer was not reaped by them, but by Germany's enemy, the United States and its successful space program.
The book is written in a dry style, so for that reason I give it only 4 stars, but it is still a very important and interesting book.

Extensive and well balanced........2002-12-25

The book covers both the political and technical matters of the V-2 (A-4) missile development. As the book is intended for a general audience the coverage of the technology is sufficient for the purpose of the book but not extremely detailed. This is also clear from the title of the book. The description of the political background and military situation is done in a very clear way. The list of references are extremely detailed and it is obviuos the the author has outstanding knowledge of the subject. The important persons are described in what I consider a very balanced way. I recommned this book to anyone wanting to learn about the inner workings of parts of the German WW2 military and political system as well as a the technology of these rockets. An excellent companion is the V-2 by Walter Dornberger which of course must be read with some caution due to the position of its author and time of publication.

Incredible book but tough reading.......2002-01-27

If you want to know a lot of technical information about the German rocket program in World War II this is the place to start. Neufeld has a grasp of the technical side of the program like no other historian, however his writing style leaves much to be desired. A good plus of the book is that he includes diagrams of the missles as well as a couple sections of pictures that give the reader an idea what the things and places he writes about look like. I found being able to visualize certain things makes understanding it much easier. He also includes an appendix with a chronology of the German rocket program that readers will find helpful for quick short references to each successive rocket in the program. Overall this is an excellent book, I give it 4 stars instead of 5 only due to Neufeld's writing style which makes this book tough going in some sections that include lots of boring, and in my opinion, overkill, technical detail.

Enigma.......2001-06-20

I am familiar with Michael Neufeld's earlier work with the Paper-Clip interviews on audio tape on file at NARA. What is enigmatically missing from these interviews (and the book) is what these pro-Nazi scientists knew about BERGKRISTALL/ESCHE 2 Guzen II at Mauthausen Concentration Camp. Yes the ME-262 jet engine was engineered and stored there but some very interesting mind boggling technologies were developed there with the help of Jewish slave labor. These slaves were murdered to eliminate any oral historical record of this new strange technology and the Nazi otracirites. Eventually in May of 1945 the invading US 41st Recon Squad 11th Ard Div 3rd US Army liberated the camps. But Russians got to this technology in the tunnels before the US forces could as our boys did not know what they had found until the O.S.S. went over photo recon much later.

By November 1947 the Russians had scooped up and exploited as much as they could and eventually dynamited the tunnels leaving us with nothing but scrapes. To this day they still have unfettered access to this technology but we caught up to them (so to speak) by bringing these Paper-Clip boys to Wright Field (Wright-Paterson AFB today)in Dayton Ohio. This was the real beginning of the Cold War Space Race.

In the Neufeld interviews you will learn of some NEW things you never knew before about the Pennemunde Boys like Project Wasserfall (i.e, submarine fired missle system), the Washington and Brooklynn Rocket Program (V-9 or the V4a bastard rocket - first attempt at ICBM). Maybe some day soon someone will discover the connection between Kplt. Hellmut Neuerburg's U-869 REAL mission from Kriegsmarine and this Wasserfall project! (i.e., a Type IXC/40 submarine that accidently sunk itself with an acoustic T5 torpedo off the coast of New Jersey halfway between Brooklyn and Washington DC in early 1945 near the end of the WWII.)

Book Description

What accounts for the precarious state of liberalism in the mid 1980s? Why was the Republican Party able to steal away so many ethnic Democrats of modest means in recent presidential elections? Jonathan Rieder explores these questions in his powerful study of the Jews and Italians of Canarsie, a middle-income community that was once the scene of a wild insurgency against racial busing. Proud bootstrappers, the children of immigrants, Canarsians may speak with piquant New York accents, but their story has a more universal appeal. Canarsie is Middle America, Brooklyn-style.

Customer Reviews:

An accurate presentation.......2006-03-10

I lived in Canarsie from 1959 through 1970. I'm Jewish but knew and went to school with many boys and girls of Italian descent. I think that the author presented an accurate picture of the social fabric of Canarsie, especially the view that it was a "closed place" in the eyes of the inhabitants; that is, it was a safe haven for its inhabitants and could remain so if outsiders were kept out. In view of skyrocketing crime rates in the 1960s outside of Canarsie, this was a rational opinion in what was seen as an oasis in an otherwise crumbling city. Rieder captures the sense of rage and helplessness felt by Canarsians about their lack of control of their lives by threats of violence by minority populations and actions of Manhattan elites who tried to redress centuries of legitimate grievances of blacks by making the Canarsians (and not themselves) give up control of their schools (and lives) and pay taxes for doing it. This is not to condone violence against black children and the firebombing of black-bought homes, but Canarsians had every right to oppose forced bussing of their children from successful Canarsie schools to unsuccessful schools outside their district, and the bussing of outside children into the district in order to satisfy the desires of outsiders without any evidence that such bussing would benefit Canarsie children (let alone the outside children as well).

For anyone who thinks that the people of Canarsie were nothing but small-minded, mean-spirited bigots, I'd like to remind him that this was a population of hard-working, law-abiding, tax-paying members of society who were the working backbone of New York City. They may have not been as educated nor "cosmopolitan" as many Manhattanites, but they were wise enough to see through the nonsense of expanded welfare handouts, non-enforcement of law, excessive government spending, and "ethnic politics" of the Lindsay years that took a generation to repair.

This is definitely a book worth reading for anyone who is interested in ethnic politics or the history of New York City in the 1960s and 1970s.

Lived Through It, Rieder Tells The Truth.......2006-01-22

I lived in Canarsie 62-86, so I saw first-hand what he is talking about. My mom still lives there, so I see what the neighborhood has become.

Rieder pulls no punches, but he is fair to all parties. Wonderful book.

The Epilogue.......2005-09-28

For those of you who wanted the racial Epilogue about the actual subject of this book, Canarsie, here it is. In the 80s the first black families started to move into single family homes in the "prime" white areas of the neighborhood. The realtor who brokered one of these moves had their offices fire-bombed. Alas, the trend already was underway and not to be stopped. A significant number of Chinese families were the first to make inroads, but I believe they since left since a critical mass of these never was established. Black families, largely middle class drawn from the ranks of city workers and others, began to move into the neighborhood in great numbers. The racial changeover occurred with remarkable speed. Within about 5 years during the mid 90s, it was complete. It seems as if there had been a huge exodus of the former residents, probably to other middle class areas in Long Island, Staten Island, Queens and elsewhere (which is where my own siblings went).

The economic outcome is mixed, at least to the observer. Rockaway Parkway and the neighborhood's shopping areas (Avenue L, and those on Rockaway Parkway itself) have declined over the years. However, the housing stock seems to be well-maintained. The decline of the shopping areas may have been a result of outside influences such as large retailers.

The rise of conservatism among the areas inhabitants, to my mind, is drawn more along economic lines. The upwardly mobile Jews in particular may have remained somewhat liberal. The working class probably did go more right.

Pay the actual neighborhood a visit one day! Canarsie Pier has been wonderfully renovated and it a nice place to walk on a summer day, to see what the fishermen have in their buckets.

A good explanation of the decline of American cities.......2002-01-08

In many circles, the most often given reasons for the decline of American cities are highways and tax-deductible mortgages. This book is good because it gives a much fuller picture of what really happened. Nobody wanted to live, or could live, in an integrated neighborhood.

A conclusion I drew from this book was that the French (who usually annoy me) handled their urban problems much better than we did. Instead of dropping housing projects in the middle of cities where the projects slowly-but-surely eroded the surrounding urban fabric, the French located their projects outside of cities, where no preexisting neighborhoods were affected.

Even though projects there are as bad as projects here, at least no one was displaced.

The biggest thing this book is missing is an epilogue. Published in 1985, the book is kinda dated.

A great study of the role of race, class and culture.......1999-11-08

This is, to say the least, one of the greatest books ever published in regard to the recent political change we have seen. What is it that has led some former left-wing liberal New Deal Democrats to turn into conservative Democrats - and on occasion Republicans - who backed Reagan and Bush and bucked President Carter and pro-union Democrat Walter Mondale? This book points at the issue of the "culture war" in regard to race and ethnicity. The author points at every issue which the Republican Right has used - crime, "welfare," government waste, etc. - and how it all points back toward the issue of race. The author is right in his declaration that liberalism and progressivism must begin to take the wishes and dreams of working class white families seriously - as well as their sympathies.

Racism is, obviously, wrong and immoral. Yet, liberals and Democrats must begin to listen to why people give in to right wing racism. If they do, then they will hear the wishes and concerns of the white working class and can begin to form an inclusive and truly compassion answer to these problems, without the scowl of Pat Buchana, Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater or George Bush. Problems - even the racist fears of whites - can be solved in a compassionate manner. Nay, they must be solved in such a manner.

Yes, it is true that most working class folks - even white ones - are self described Democrats. How can't they be? Yet, it is true that on occasion may drift from the party of FDR and unto the right for certain candidates. Why? Racial fears. Progressives must learn to prevent this. This book shows us how we can.

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Canarsie: The Jews and Italians of Brooklyn Against Liberalism
Jonathan Rieder
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000I8REB2

Average customer rating:
Canarsie: The Jews and Italians of Brooklyn against Liberalism.

Manufacturer: 0
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ICQPE0

Average customer rating:
Canarsie: The Jews and Italians of Brooklyn against Liberalism.
Jonathan Rieder
Manufacturer: See notes
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000V0J8QQ

Book Description

Stretching across southern Mexico, northern Guatemala, and Belize, the Maya Forest, or Selva Maya, constitutes one of the last large blocks of tropical forest remaining in North and Central America. Home to Mayan-speaking people for more than 5,000 years, the region is also uncommonly rich in cultural and archaeological resources.

Timber, Tourists, and Temples brings together the leading leading biologists, social scientists, and conservationists working in the region to present in a single volume information on the intricate social and political issues, and the complex scientifc and management problems to be resolved there. Following an introductory chapter that presents GIS and remote sensing data, the book:

Considers perspectives on managing forest resources and the forestry and conservation policies of each nation

Examines efforts by communities to manage their forest resources

Explains the connections between resource conservation and use by local people

Highlights research projects that integrate baseline biological research with impact assessments

Explains the need to involve local people in conservation effort.

Timber, Tourists, and Temples explores methods of supporting the biological foundation of the Maya Forest and keeping alive that unique and diverse ecosystem. While many areas face similar development pressures, few have been studied as much or for as long as the Maya Forest. The wealth of information included in this pathbreaking work will be valuable not only for researchers involved with the Maya Forest but for anyone concerned with the protection, use, and management of tropical forest ecosystems throughout the world.

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