Book Description
A young girl is perched on the cold chrome of yet another doctor’s examining table, missing yet another day of school. Just twelve, she’s tall, skinny, and weak. It’s four o’clock, and she hasn’t been allowed to eat anything all day. Her mother, on the other hand, seems curiously excited. She's about to suggest open-heart surgery on her child to "get to the bottom of this." She checks her teeth for lipstick and, as the doctor enters, shoots the girl a warning glance. This child will not ruin her plans.
Sickened
From early childhood, Julie Gregory was continually X-rayed, medicated, and operated on—in the vain pursuit of an illness that was created in her mother’s mind. Munchausen by proxy (MBP) is the world’s most hidden and dangerous form of child abuse, in which the caretaker—almost always the mother—invents or induces symptoms in her child because she craves the attention of medical professionals. Many MBP children die, but Julie Gregory not only survived, she escaped the powerful orbit of her mother's madness and rebuilt her identity as a vibrant, healthy young woman.
Sickened is a remarkable memoir that speaks in an original and distinctive Midwestern voice, rising to indelible scenes in prose of scathing beauty and fierce humor. Punctuated with Julie's actual medical records, it re-creates the bizarre cocoon of her family's isolated double-wide trailer, their wild shopping sprees and gun-waving confrontations, the astonishing naïveté of medical professionals and social workers. It also exposes the twisted bonds of terror and love that roped Julie's family together—including the love that made a child willing to sacrifice herself to win her mother's happiness.
The realization that the sickness lay in her mother, not in herself, would not come to Julie until adulthood. But when it did, it would strike like lightning. Through her painful metamorphosis, she discovered the courage to save her own life—and, ultimately, the life of the girl her mother had found to replace her.
Sickened takes us to new places in the human heart and spirit. It is an unforgettable story, unforgettably told.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
Great book.......2007-09-20
This is an excellent book about what survivors of Munchausen's by Proxy live with. I especially liked the author's description of how she thought her early experiences were "normal" and how she still felt close to her parents for a while as an adult in spite of the abuse she endured.
This book will make you inspect yourself..........2007-06-11
I guess I had a pretty normal childhood. After reading Julie's book, I certainly feel that way. I also realize how little I look at others as people. I mean, sure I see everyone as people, but thinking more deeply as to why people do things... well, I don't do that often. So, when I meet someone who is eccentric and hard to understand, maybe I'm quick to judge and brush off as merely "too different" for me. This book made me realize that there's so much more to people than what I see. This disorder could have affected anyone I may meet... how do you know? I feel I may be able to see other's lives from a new perspective, one that is more loving and caring than anything I've ever been taught, or anything I've ever tried. I think many people will feel the same.
Sad Beyond Belief .......2007-05-23
Julie Gregory must be an amazing sole to have lived this life and survived. I have heard a little about MBP but after reading this book, I want to learn more. I need to learn more. Julie's horrific childhood consisted of abuse and torture...of the body and mind. Her childhood was stripped away from her at the hands of those who should have protected her. Be prepared emotionally to read a very descriptive book that will make you hug your child and thank your mother.
Unsettling story of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy.......2007-02-13
"Sickened" is an autobiography about the victim of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MBP). MBP is a mental disorder in which a person (usually a mother) inflicts injury on another (usually a child) in order to gain attention and praise. In this case, the author's mother was the predator. It's hard to believe that anyone's childhood could be this awful. Ms. Gregory's childhood was not full of love, but of horrible abuse - such as being starved, given medicine to make her sick, subjected to rigorous and invasive medical tests and procedures for no reason, and being forced to work on the family farm for hours every day while trying to recover from surgery. Not only was her mother abusive, but her father was as well, beating her and (somehow worse) forcing her to eat his used Kleenex. It's shocking to read about how greedy and selfish they are, about the mother taking in foster children and elderly people for the money and then abusing them.
The author does a wonderful job of explaining the disorder, gives a lot of insight into her childhood and information about her family. The book isn't long and is relative fast-paced. It's equally interesting and horrifying. She definitely has a gift for writing. The book flows well, but does slow down a bit when we get to the part about her going to college, and living in her house of mirrors. Somehow, it doesn't seem that she got into much detail about when she found out about MBP her exploration of condition. She doesn't talk much about her therapy, either.
I'm disappointed that there's not much of a follow-up on the book. What happened to the mother? Has she been prosecuted? Is she still taking in foster children? The author has a website, but the link to the "update" page is broken.
This is a very personal and educational book. I highly recommend it to those who are interested in reading about mental conditions.
Strong and horrifying at first, but the end is a little meh........2007-01-13
Abnormal psychology is another passion of mine. Pretty much the weirder it is, the more I want to know about it. Whilst my favourite disorders are ones like alexithymia and dissociative identity disorder that's severe enough to have dissociative fugues, ones that are transferred onto others strike me as just the weirdest things ever. For those who haven't heard of the disorder, Munchausen syndrome is a disorder in which patients feign illness in order to get attention from people. They're willing to go to all lengths in order to get this attention no matter how painful the procedure may be. In order to avoid being diagnosed with the disorder, the patients will bounce around from doctor to doctor, claiming that when a doctor doesn't find anything wrong with them, it's because the doctor is just a poorly educated doctor who will likely be sued in the near future because he or she didn't find whatever was wrong with the patient.
This may seem like a horrible position to place one's self in, but it does get worse. Beyond this first-person disease is something that crosses into the realms of child abuse, a condition known as 'Munchausen syndrome by proxy.' The Merck Manual, basically my medical bible, gives the best definition of this:
The adult falsifies history and may injure the child with drugs or other agents or add blood or bacterial contaminants to urine specimens to simulate disease. The parent seeks medical care for the child and appears to be deeply concerned and protective. The child typically has a history of frequent hospitalizations, usually for a variety of nonspecific symptoms, but no firm diagnosis. Victimized children may be seriously ill and sometimes die.
Although this usually happens to young children and, because medical professionals are now more familiar because of high-profile MBP cases, the children are taken away from their parents, it is rare to see a person who remains in a MBP situation until adulthood. Julie Gregory, however, remained with her abusive parents until she was eighteen and found herself wandering back to them even to her thirties. Born prematurely to an anorexic mother, she was very ill in infancy. Appreciative of the attention people doled out to her because of her sickly baby, she decided to mentally profit from it. As a child, Julie was carted around from doctor to doctor as her mother demanded they 'find out what was wrong with [her].' She had all sorts of tests done on her, had an entire cabinet in the kitchen devoted to just her medications, and never really got a chance at school because her mother was carting her around Ohio looking for the next doctor to check her out.
In order to make her appear sick, her mother rarely allowed her to eat. When she went in for cardiologist appointments, her body struggled when she even tried to stand. She was always tired, and when writing this memoir, she remembered that at no point did anyone ask if she'd been eating. When she was finally admitted to a hospital for observation and began eating, there was a marked improvement in her health, but afraid that they would send her home, she began making herself sick in the hopes that she would be able to remain there. Once liberated from her parents after her mother tried to do an arranged marriage between her and a man twice her age, Julie sunk into her own little pit of despair especially after hearing about MBP in a psychology class but then also finding that no therapist she talked to had even heard of the disorder.
From the time she is emancipated until the book ends, she tries to make amends with her parents but finds that despite all outward appearances, neither of them has changed at all since her childhood. Her mother has continued MBP with a new adopted daughter and Julie makes it her goal in life to free the girl from her mother's grasp by taking her mother to court for child abuse.
This book is definitely something that those interested in psychology would enjoy. It's very much like a personalisation of a case file, showing how the disorder manifests itself from the youth of the mother up through the adulthood of the daughter. For those entering the mental health industry and even those going into the medical field, this book offers a wealth of information about the disorder in a very accessible format.
Average customer rating:
- Painful to read but I couldn't put it down.
- A childhood of pills, needles, doctors, and fear
- Clear your calendar and make room for this one!
- A hero born from a fearful childhood
- You will never forget this story!
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Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood
Julie Gregory , and
Marc D. Feldman
Manufacturer: Bantam
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Cruel Deception: A Mother's Deadly Game, a Prosecutor's Crusade for Justice (St. Martin's True Crime Library)
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Child's Journey Through Placement
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Playing Sick?: Untangling the Web of Munchausen Syndrome, Munchausen by Proxy, Malingering, and Factitious Disorder
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ASIN: 0553803077
Release Date: 2003-09-30 |
Book Description
A young girl is perched on the cold chrome of yet another doctor’s examining table, missing yet another day of school. Just twelve, she’s tall, skinny, and weak. It’s four o’clock, and she hasn’t been allowed to eat anything all day. Her mother, on the other hand, seems curiously excited. She's about to suggest open-heart surgery on her child to "get to the bottom of this." She checks her teeth for lipstick and, as the doctor enters, shoots the girl a warning glance. This child will not ruin her plans.
Sickened
From early childhood, Julie Gregory was continually X-rayed, medicated, and operated on—in the vain pursuit of an illness that was created in her mother’s mind. Munchausen by proxy (MBP) is the world’s most hidden and dangerous form of child abuse, in which the caretaker—almost always the mother—invents or induces symptoms in her child because she craves the attention of medical professionals. Many MBP children die, but Julie Gregory not only survived, she escaped the powerful orbit of her mother's madness and rebuilt her identity as a vibrant, healthy young woman.
Sickened is a remarkable memoir that speaks in an original and distinctive Midwestern voice, rising to indelible scenes in prose of scathing beauty and fierce humor. Punctuated with Julie's actual medical records, it re-creates the bizarre cocoon of her family's isolated double-wide trailer, their wild shopping sprees and gun-waving confrontations, the astonishing naïveté of medical professionals and social workers. It also exposes the twisted bonds of terror and love that roped Julie's family together—including the love that made a child willing to sacrifice herself to win her mother's happiness.
The realization that the sickness lay in her mother, not in herself, would not come to Julie until adulthood. But when it did, it would strike like lightning. Through her painful metamorphosis, she discovered the courage to save her own life—and, ultimately, the life of the girl her mother had found to replace her.
Sickened takes us to new places in the human heart and spirit. It is an unforgettable story, unforgettably told.
Customer Reviews:
Painful to read but I couldn't put it down........2007-02-09
I thought the story was very well told. It reminded me of Dave Pelzer's books. Reading what was done to these people as children was really horrifying. I was difficult to read but I couldn't put it down. I thought Julie did an excellent job of telling her story with all the heartbreaking details. I thought her parent's history was very interesting. And I really wanted to know more when I was done. How did the court case end, what's her relationship with her mother like now? And what do we know about Munchausen's by Proxy?
A childhood of pills, needles, doctors, and fear.......2006-01-14
Sickened is a touching memoir that tells the story of a girl's (Julie's) childhood...or lack there of. Her childhood was plagued by Munchausen's by proxy syndrome; a form of child abuse where a caretaker deliberately induces illness on a child by poisoning them or by other measures, or simply makes up symptoms of a child in order to satisfy their own need for attention and acknowledgement. Julie's mother used a combination of inducing symptoms on Julie by giving her an array of pills, starving her, overworking her, and lying to doctors about false symptoms. Her whole childhood was spent going from doctor to doctor trying to find one that would listen to her mother because "her child was sick" and "the other doctors were just not smart enough and did not care enough to finally find some answers." Julie does not know how her mother is hurting her until one day she is in her college psychology class and the professor starts talking about Munchausen's by proxy syndrome. As soon as Julie hears the professor, she snaps out of her daze...she can relate to everything he is saying! It was a huge slap in the face for her to suddenly learn that she is not the sickly girl her mother has made her out to be, but that the mother she has listened to and trusted all her life has actually been hurting her. Her mother had her brainwashed as a girl...Julie was always told she was just an ugly, sickly girl, so that is how Julie always perceived herself. Once she learned that it was her mother that had the problem, and not her, she was able to move past this image and see herself as much more than the sad, sickly girl.
This book takes a reader on an emotional roller coaster. I found myself wanting to reach out and help Julie, to tell her what her mother was doing to her. The book made a lasting impact on me by telling personal accounts of Julie on her different trips to hospitals; from her unneeded surgery to her mother begging the doctor to perform open heart surgery. The book let a reader get inside Julie's head at all these times to find out what she was thinking, how scared and confused she was. It pained me to read about her going through all the unnecessary pain. Julie's stories make a very informative, non-fiction book attention-grabbing by evoking emotion in the reader.
Clear your calendar and make room for this one!.......2005-12-28
Phenomenal work of literature in the classic memoir style. Julie Gregory tells a compelling story of childhood abuse at the hands of an extraordinarily sick mother. Although the images are shocking and the emotion quite raw, Julie Gregory tells her story in a gentle voice full of love and forgiveness. An incredible tale of self-discovery and redemption of a soul shattered by the evils of mental illness. Gregory's mother suffers from Munchausen by Proxy (apparently, her mother had the illness too.) I read the book in 24 hours and could not put it down, even if I had wanted to. Some of the chapters will leave you gasping for air. Gregory escorts you through her house of horrors in the first person, and with only slightly more familiarity with the emotional floor plan than you, the reader. You are right there with her, experiencing all of the pain, abandonment and shock of discovering that your parents are quite willing and capable of killing you. Were this a work of fiction, it would instantly become a classic. Unfortunately for Ms. Gregory, the story is true.
A hero born from a fearful childhood.......2005-12-17
I am so proud of Julie Gregory after reading this book. She overcame an extremely traumatic childhood and adolescence to become a beautiful and successful woman. I thought this book was wonderfully written and I couldnt put it down. I was sickened and scared while reading her accounts of her childhood and wanted to jump into the book myself to save her. I feel this book gives others a clear picture of this strange psychosis and signs to look out for.
You will never forget this story!.......2005-11-13
Sickened is a very sad book, but an excellent story that captures your attention and your heart. I can't believe Julie Gregory survived this kind of child abuse called Munchausen by Proxy. I had never heard of this type of child abuse, all I can say is that it's so horrible.
Julie writes about the darkness of her childhood, a darkness caused by her own mother, a darkness in which her mother made her ill despite the fact that she was fine. It's hard to believe that parents can be this cruel and it really breaks my heart to know that there are thousands of children out there who go through this everyday.
I would like to know what happened to her mother. I honestly think she needs to be locked up. People like her need help.
It really takes courage to write about this. I thank Julie for writing about her painful past and helping some people learn about this form of child abuse.
When I read it I couldn't help but remembering a quote I read a few months ago by Mitch Albom, "Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair."
I've never read a book this thrilling in all my life. I highly recommend everyone to pick up this touching real-life story and read it. Trust me; it gets to your heart.
vgxoxo@hotmail.com
Product Description
This is a memoir of the author's life growing up with her Munchausen by proxy mother.
Book Description
Among the great tragedies that befell Poland during World War II was the forced deportation of its citizens by the Soviet Union during the first Soviet occupation of that country between 1939 and 1941.
This is the story of that brutal Soviet ethnic cleansing campaign told in the words of some of the survivors. It is an unforgettable human drama of excruciating martyrdom in the Gulag. For example, one witness reports: "A young woman who had given birth on the train threw herself and her newborn under the wheels of an approaching train." Survivors also tell the story of events after the "amnesty." "Our suffering is simply indescribable. We have spent weeks now sleeping in lice-infested dirty rags in train stations," wrote the Milewski family. Details are also given on the non-European countries that extended a helping hand to the exiles in their hour of need.
Customer Reviews:
Virtually Forgotten Soviet Genocide Against Poles.......2005-11-18
Piotrowski, the author, dedicates this book: "To the victims of Soviet crimes against humanity". Everyone has heard of what the Nazis did to the Jews, but who ever heard of the 2-3 million Polish gentiles also murdered by the Germans? Even fewer have so much as an inkling of the millions of victims of Communism. The Soviet genocide directed against Poles, reliant as it was on shootings and especially mass overwork and starvation, does not capture the imagination as much as the assembly-style gassing and cremation performed by the Germans. But it was no less real, and no less effective.
All the while, Britain and America were silent and indifferent to Poland's fate. They were in the throes of a Stalin-appeasing mentality, and increasingly saw Poland as a nuisance that undermined Soviet-western relations. As Piotrowski makes it clear, "Appeasement only emboldens the aggressor". Judging by subsequent events of the Cold War, did it ever!
The deportations were the Soviet Union's attempt to gradually destroy the Polish population of the eastern half of Poland that had been conquered in 1939 (Nazi Germany conquered the western half). Piotrowski estimates that 1.7 million Poles were deported to Siberia and other inhospitable regions of the USSR. About half the deported Poles died a slow death there. Only the unexpected German attack on its erstwhile Soviet ally in July 1941 limited the scope of this genocide by putting a halt to further deportations and eventually prompting the release of the emaciated but still-living captive Poles.
Piotrowski describes the harrowing experiences of the Poles in Soviet captivity through the eyes of several eyewitnesses, including "Eva", my aunt. The Communists proved themselves to be masters in psychological torture as well as physical torture. Thus "Eva" was falsely told that her relatives had been put to death. To mock her Christian beliefs, she was dutifully told that her relatives were now "among the angels in heaven". She was thrown in a dungeon in which there was a decomposing human corpse. Miraculously, she was finally released, along with the rest of the family. The surviving Poles lost everything but their lives. After the Soviet "amnesty" (in which only a part of the still-living captive Poles were released, not all as promised), the Poles gathered in five geographic regions, including Iran and India. Most of the survivors never returned to Poland. Poland had already been given away by the west as a Soviet satellite with a Communist puppet government.
Book Description
It has been 25 years since Greek colonels staged a coup on Cyprus, ousting Greek-Cypriot leader Archbishop Makarios, and Turkey retaliated by invading and seizing a third of the island. The island remains split in two, policed by the United Nations. Henry Kissinger claimed he could do nothing to stop this because of the Watergate crisis. The Cyprus Conspiracy provides crucial evidence that this was no failure of American foreign policy, revealing for the first time the explosive strategic reasons why Washington had to divide the island.
Customer Reviews:
review.......2007-08-08
Dear friends, you can't make, know and understand history by reading one book. I have read a number (big number) of books regarding the Cyprus problem. Books written from GCs, TCs and foreigners.
I wont write down a summary of history but i will just say that what happened to Cyprus was a crime the West did and the two communities here were more than willing to go along with it. The West has never saw the problem as it was, but it handled it according to the cold-war interests. Nationalism in both sides was developing with Britain's blessing and the conflicts were inevitable. After Cyp's independance, none side worked they way they were supposed to work. GCs were seeing independace as a step towrds the final Enosis and TCs saw it as a step towards partition/division.
There were many crimes against civilians, innocent people from both sides. After the military regime in Greece (established and founded by USA's Kissinger) made the coup against Makarios, Turkey found the opportunity it was looking for to invade and divide the island. Ever after cease-fire was agreed, they continued their aggression and took 37% of the island's land. 200.000 refugees, many killed, many slaughtered and abortion (due to rapes) was made legan for 1 year. Since then, both sides create their propaganda against each other instead of seeing what the real problem was. GCs would never admit their mistakes and what their nationalism brought. On the contrary, we (GCs) tend to remember those murderers as heroes. On the other hand, TCs saw the invasion as a peaceful operation (my a*s) and they also remember their nationalists as heroes. They both created a climate of hetery for each other, that has fallen apart since the "borders" opened and people visited each other. There were MANY incidents of TCs and GCs finding each other after 30 years and bursting into tears from joy. Recently there are some left-wing organizations and movements from both sides that try to re-write history, as it really was. They blame nationalism, they organise many bi-communal activities that relatives of vistims (civilians slaughtered just because they were greeks or turks) speak and promote forgiveness and reunification. Many writers, journalists and activists are criticised in their communities (Gc and TC) for talking against nationalism and that their side made mistakes. Few weeks ago, those activists dcided to visit mass graves of GCs and TCs to deliver some flowers and honours. First they went to the fre part of Nicosia and they (together GCs and TCs) paid respects. Then they tried to go to the northern part to a mass grave of GCs. They were stopped. The regime in the north did not let them do it. And this is just an example where the leaders of both communities cause problems to people who just want to forgive and move on. THIS is the biggest problem now in Cyprus... the denial of truth, from both sides. And as a turkish writer once wrote "those who walk the same path, will get to the same place eventually"... that says a lot about nationalism.
Greek Cypriots reject the UN Peace Plan to unify the Island.......2006-11-14
It is funny how many Greek and Greek Cypriots like to revise history. Lets recap the events of the Island.
Cyprus was under Ottoman rule for 400 years prior to annexation by Great Britain. And when Great Britain finally agreed to leave it was decided that since the island had both a Greek and Turkish community the best solution was to have it become sovereign as opposed to becoming a part of either Greece or Turkey. The Turkish minority was certainly content with this model.
Under Makarios's rule most of the democratically held political power was stripped away from the Turks. The Greek Cypriots began a campaign of ethnically cleansing the Island of Turks with the objective of unifying with Greece. Turkey did not invade the island until a Greek orchestrated coup. Even then Turkey asked the England and Greece to intervene and reverse this to no avail. Only after that did they invade to protect the Turkish minority from the Greek atrocities.
Fast forward to 2004. The UN devised a plan to unify the Island. The US and the EU both thought it was a just and fair resolution. The Turkish Cypriot's under pressure form Turkey accepted this plan by 65% vote. The Greek Cypriots defeated the plan by 75% vote. The Turkish Cypriots got punished for their decision to go along with world opinion and the Greek Cypriots were rewarded by being allowed to enter the EU.
To this day the Turkish Cypriots are being punished. They are not a pariah state. They don't practice terrorism? Why the isolation? Why the embargo? It is clear that the Turkish minority will never be allowed to live in peace with the Greek majority on the island. And it is too small to be an independent state. The only solution is for Turkey to annex Norther Cyprus. This is not what Turkey wants but the Greeks have a way of pushing Turkey in this direction. Their objective is to use every round of EU membership to extract concessions, only at the end to veto Turkey's application anyway. What they fail to realize is Turkey will not become a hostage to this. Their efforts have managed to turn Turkish public opinion against EU membership. Any hope of uniting the Island only exists for as long as Turkey believes it is in her interest to do so. That time is just about up. Greek Cypriots should take a one last look across the border to Northern Cyprus. The next time they look across they may be looking at a Turkish city.
my two sense.......2006-06-20
I too feel compelled to write upon reading a prior review which said "The Turkish government used its right to get in and saved the lives of thousands of Turks out there. Why did they only took one third of the island? Because at that time the Turk population was the one third of the population of Cyprus. What do you expect?"
What do I expect? That land was my grandparent's village where they were born and raised. Explain to me why someone else is living illegally in my grandparent's house without ever compensating them for a penny of its worth. Regardless of that even, they hold that village dearly in their hearts as their home. It's sad that they are not welcome or allowed there because "the turkish government used it's right to get in" according to someone's view. Let's not all forget that there are individual human beings involved in this and their pain and suffering runs deep. Illegally occupying one's land and house does not seem like a "right" to me.
This must be a great book. Here is what I remember from those days.......2005-11-13
Sorry,I have not read this book yet,I certainlly will. As someone serving in the Greek military the days of the invasion I would like to point the following. It was well known in Greece that when "Atila" starting rolling on the island many fleeing Greek Cypriots gave the keys of their houses for safe keeping to ***their Turkish Cypriot neighbors***. I think this speaks volumes. It was talked about in our army that the pupet of the US inspired regime in Athens Mr Sampson, who had led the coup against Makarios that meant to anex Cyprus to the dictatorship in Greece had gathered many Turkish Cypriots in a foot ball stadium with some very bad plans for them. We should not forget that the attack on the Turkish Cypriots was part of a general attack on the Cypriot republic. Readers may want to go back to the interview of Makario's in Oriana Falatsi's "Interview with History". Britain of course had been practising for a while there the old and tried "Divide and Rule". I saw with my own eyes right wing connected members of the Greek military cheering at the overthrough of the government of Makarios. It was their dream come true, of course some days later they saw that the Turkish generals had been ready for a very long time to take advantage of that unique oportunity, clearly for the generals in Ankara the well being of the Turkish Cypriots was not a major concern. NOTE: The reviews of the book on this site do bring all sorts of important points to the attention of the reader. This is the most informative collection of reviews I ever read at the Amazon site.
Good book!.......2005-02-18
Well written, full of facts and light on 'opinions' - just the way history books should be written.
Average customer rating:
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The Adirondacks: Wild Island of Hope (Creating the North American Landscape)
Gary A. Randorf
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The Adirondacks: A History of America's First Wilderness
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Book Description
"Here is the first lesson about the Adirondacks, captured in Gary Randorf's magnificent photos. It is not only alpine granite -- in fact, of the park's six million acres, only about eighty-five, scattered on top of the tallest mountains, are that gorgeous pseudo-Arctic. Aside from the touristed High Peaks, the Adirondacks comprise millions upon millions of acres of Low Peaks, of beavery draws and bearish woods, of hills and hills and hills, countless drainages and muddy ponds... The second point about the Adirondacks, a glory carefully revealed in the words and pictures of this book, is that it represents a second-chance wilderness and, as such, a hope that the damage caused by human beings is not irreversible. It is metaphor as much as place." -- from the foreword by Bill McKibben
In The Adirondacks: Wild Island of Hope, Gary A. Randorf offers 100 photographs to illustrate this unique, comprehensive history and natural history of the Adirondack Park, the first private-public partnership in the United States dedicated to the protection of a wilderness area. Situated in northeast New York, this regional park of six million acres represents a unique blend of public wildlands intermixed with commercial forests, farms, mines, private parks, prisons, scattered homes, dozens of villages, and a year-round population of 130,000. The ongoing attempts over the last century to make the Adirondacks a park have made this region a "striving ground" for living with the land, rather than outside or above it. Much of the strife is over finding a right relationship to the land, treating it not as a commodity to be exploited but as a community to which all living things belong and upon which all depend.
Today, the Adirondacks regional park with its six million acres "represents a second-chance wilderness" -- as Bill McKibben writes in his foreword to this book. The concerns of this park are the same concerns that apply to all of America's parks, recreational areas, and wildernesses with the addition of how to maintain the fragile peace between human and natural communities. How that "second-chance" can be realized is the focus of Gary Randorf's text and stunning color photographs.
Customer Reviews:
Eloquent Book!.......2002-08-20
Gary Randolf has done a remarkable job of splicing natural history, Americans and psychical beauty into one great book. Traveling through time and seasons, the reader feels the words and witnesses the beauty of the Adirondack mountains. It's not just full of incredible landscape shots (both subtle and grand) but is matched with a moving narrative that warns us this island paradise will always be in danger.
Time for the world to take heed, especially in a period of history when our government seems to feel that acid rain is so irreversible here, that we can actually lower emissions standards? That the damage is already done? It's not too late, and Mr. Randorf reminds us with every page.
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