Book Description
Means is the most controversial Indian leader of our time. This is the well-detailed, first-hand story of his life so far, in which he has done everything possible to dramatize and justify the Native American aim of self-determination, such as storming Mount Rushmore, seizing Plymouth Rock, running for President in 1988, and-most notoriously-leading a 71-day takeover of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in 1973. This visionary autobiography by one of our most magnetic personalities will fascinate, educate, and inspire. As Dee Brown has written, "A reading of Means's story is essential for any clear understanding of American Indians during the last half of the twentieth century."
Customer Reviews:
Good book on Russell Means.......2007-07-07
This is a thorough and long book by Russell Means about his life as an American Indian. He has a lot of hatred toward the white race, which is understandable, but it makes his book hard to read at times because his hatred comes through the pages. He is also obviously biased at points, but that is to be expected because it is an autobiography. However, this man has been through a lot and has done a lot for AIM (american indian movement) so this is a good read to find out about that. If you can get past the hatred in this book, it's worth the read.
Like only Russwll Means can tell........2006-09-20
This book is a must read for anyone who wishes to know the true struggles of our native peoples today. This book covers it all and thumbs up.
THE AMERICAN INDIAN EXPERIENCE.......2006-02-25
THE AMERICAN INDIAN EXPERIENCE ---I found Russell Means portrayal of his life incredibly moving. Already having knowledge of Native American struggles, I immediately found myself floating through time and experiencing emotional identity with Mr. Means. I have shared this book many times with people I know so they can truly understand the importance the American Indian Movement has been in this country. I beg everyone to read this book. - S. Holmes, Chicago, IL
THE AMERICAN INDIAN EXPERIENCE.......2006-02-25
I found Russell Means portrayal of his life incredibly moving. Already having knowledge of Native American struggles, I immediately found myself floating through time and experiencing emotional identity with Mr. Means. I have shared this book many times with people I know so they can truly understand the importance the American Indian Movement has been in this country. I beg everyone to read this book. S. HOLMES, CHICAGO.
Russel Means:Idiot,bootlicker,lackey and fool.......2006-01-28
I am an African-American male,product of the struggles for humanity in the 60's. I started Russel Means book with great anticipationand finished it with unbridled digust. Where do i begin,Means lies when he says aim started the community patrols before anyone,incliding the Guardian Angesl and the Nation of Islam.Fact:The patrols were started by the Black Panther party when Means was still dealing drugs,and being an all the way live drunk. He talks of rhe confration at the BiA building and uses it to propogate his anti-black racist venom ,throught the book most African-Americans are depcited as reactionaries and/or fools. Means goes on to lie,how Indians would marry slaves and prefer to go into slavery than suffer the injustices of being Indian. Fact:Means trivalizes the holocaust my people suffered. In Dennis Banks book he cites the support the African-American community provided during the liberation of the BIA building. Means gets his cookies off villifying an dinsulting and denigrating people who,because of our shared oprresion in this country,should be his natural allies, While excusing blatant racists like Mcgovern and Janklow,and allowing himself to turn tricks for Larry Flynt. See Russell whore for 30 pieces and all the butt he can kiss. When one reads this book you get the impression there would be no Aim without Russell Means,every good idea is his,the people are lost sheep without him,Talk about mendacious meglomania. Even white supremacists group are given a greater degree of emmpathy then the African community,live a black person in America,and see how great life is,this short sighted fool cannot recognize people who have a common oppressor because of his reactionary racist tendacies. He condemns the black cops,and Ithis is the one thing er agree on,who did the oppressors biding during th biia liberation,asking how could they allow thenselves to be used to harm another disenfranchised people,yet he cannot see the simalarties with those of the Indians mecanaries who served in Vietnam and participated in the murder of a people who were fighting for their own destiny. This myopic egomaniac,see nothing wrong in murdering vietnamese for U.S. imperialiasm,not one indaian was killed by those D.C. cops. To reiterate Means neglects to mention How during the Bia liberation,the African American community provided food and spiritaul support,at yellow thunder camp,it is course a black man lacking character. Which leads one to conclude M eans is the worst type of anti-black racist,the racist who comes from the wretchded of the earth. In conclusion depsite Means facade at heart he is still a macintosh,a red and green apple(since this parasite will seel his soul for white money,despite his declarations to the contrary),but white to the core.
Book Description
"I WAS AMONG THE FIRST MEN IN,
AND I WAS THE LAST MAN OUT."
In Vietnam, at both the start and finish of the conflict, 2d Lt. James E. Parker Jr. saw the war as few men did. Now, with uncommon insight and raw honesty, he captures the stark realities of jungle combat, heavy casualties, and heroic sacrifice. From the tight confines of a VC-occupied Cu Chi tunnel to bloody firefights in areas that hardcore VC and NVA vets had controlled for decades, Parker relives the rain, the heat, the horror, the pain--and the anguish of kneeling beside a buddy whose blood turnd the soil black as he lays dying. Vietnam exacted a very high price. Parker pays tribute to the men who paid it.
Customer Reviews:
Last Man Out: A Personal Account of the Vietnam War.......2007-01-22
Easy reading, fast-paced action, pithy, incisive commentary. Does not dwell on brutal details. James Parker presents the Vietnam war from the inside--not a pretty picture but a very good book from an author who is a gifted writer into the bargain.
Essential Reading.......2001-08-14
From the humorous to the horrific...from tragedy to triumph...and a somber assessment of what really happened in Southeast Asia, this short and powerful book is essential reading for those considering work in the patriotic service.
Superior.......2001-07-09
I borrowed this book from a friend at Airborne School this past May, and tore through it in about three days. What a great read! It's so entertaining and gripping, I kept checking the inside flap of the book to make sure it wasn't fiction.
More than just a war story, this is more or less a biography of James Parker. Since the Vietnam conflict was so lengthy and controversial, it's worthwhile to see how it affected his life after James left combat. This is a guy who saw it all: he hit the beach in knee deep water in the early years, and was one of the last CIA guys to leave the island nation years after the U.S. had abandoned the country militarily.
The best features of this book are James' crystal clear recollections of his war buddies and his involvment in the CIA effort. What other book out there has a detailed personal account of the positively heroic efforts of the secret combat operations after the Army left? Also excellent is James' tense telling of a huge operation to lure the VC into attacking a dummy convoy.
This is a man who has done it all. If you're interested in the Vietnam War, this is requred reading.
A true accounting of his time in the military!.......2001-02-03
Last Man Out: A Personal Account of the Vietnam War by James E. Parker, Jr. is the best book I've read in a long time. If this author didn't have a tape recorder or a diary that he wrote in everyday then I have to say he has a most remarkable memory. James takes the reader back to his home in North Carolina and introduces his family and friends. He continues as he makes the decision to enlist in the Army at a time when others were already doing everything they could to avoid serving their country. The reader goes through Basic Training with James and his buddies at Fort Gordon, Georgia in February 1964. Two months later after being named "Outstanding Trainee" James reiterates some of his time while at his Advanced Infantry Training. You are there when he signs up for Officer Candidate School and while he waited to be selected. You go through that six-month course with him too beginning in November at Fort Benning, Georgia. Upon graduation James goes to Jump School. From there the book gets even better. James first Permanent Party duty station was at Fort Riley, Kansas with the 1st Infantry Division. Then through his Tour of Duty in Vietnam. James told about an encounter with General William Westmoreland following a mission. The general flew in to review the troops, present medals and then was gone. It was a mere media event. When the general departed, another officer walked the line and took back the medals. After Nam James next assignment took him to Fort Ord in Monterey, California. He became the Officer-in-Charge of the 6th Army Area Drill Sergeant School. It was a great assignment. BUT James was thinking about leaving the Army but he "felt guilty about forsaking my duty, abandoning my obligation to country at a time of war." Unable to find a job that suited him he applied for and was accepted as a member of the Central Intelligence Agency. By September 1971 James was headed back to Southeast Asia "as a case officer in the Lao program, the CIA's largest covert operation." James was involved with several operations before heading stateside in 1973. He spoke openly about them. By January 1975 James was the only American left in Vi Thanh province. At that point he secured himself a "bodyguard." James wrote of the fall of Ban Me Thout, Hue, Da Nang, and Saigon. He took part in the evacuation of the Vietnamese who worked as agents for the CIA. He spoke of the problems encountered onboard the USS Vancouver and the transfer to the USNS Pioneer Contender. James Parker Jr. wrote an incredible account of his military and civilian service to our country and the people of South Vietnam. It is a book well worth reading. I'm glad I had the opportunity to meet the author in person in 1998. AND I'm glad I took the time to read his book. You will be also.
Excellent Personal Vietnam War Account.......2001-01-27
If my son were to enter the service, I would require him to read Mr Parker's book. The details of how to survive Army life are staight forward and important. I found the book easy and enjoyable to read. Could not put it down. As with any super book, I often found myself looking at the number of pages left to read-the more the merrier. Mr. Parker has truely made something of himself and the people of the United States have reaped the benefits. Thank you Mr. Parker.
Customer Reviews:
An Angel Directs the Storm.......2006-11-27
well written, and thoughtful. These are difficult times, the book helps with clarification.
The theological rationale for American imperialism.......2006-01-24
The strength and purpose of this book by Christian theologian Michael Northcott of the University of Edinburgh is to provide a history of conservative Christianity in its varied forms as it relates to the apocalyptic vision shared by George W. Bush and his evangelical supporters.
An irony that Northcott explains is how the Christian right came to their unequivocal support of Israel against the Arab Muslims. Considering the appalling history of how Christians have behaved toward Jews in Eastern and Western Europe, in Russia, in the United States, and elsewhere it is difficult to understand why they should now be championing the Jewish cause. The answer is as simple as it is stupid. The evangelicals think that by establishing and maintaining a Jewish state in Palestine they are helping to usher in the Rapture, Armageddon and the return of Christ and his 1,000-year reign of peace. They believe this because it is prophesied that the Jews will return to Palestine and resettle the biblical lands, rebuild Jerusalem "and in particular the Third Temple on the site currently occupied by the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque" before the apocalypse. (p. 61) Evangelical Christians have little interest in helping the Jewish people. Their real motivation for supporting Israel is to further their delusive sense of history.
Not so incidentally it is further prophesied that this will be a horrific time for the Jews in Israel because of "fierce resistance" and "dreadful wars"; but those who survive "will ultimately recognize Christ as the true Messiah and so greet him at his Second Coming." (p. 61) In other words, what they think they are helping to usher in is a time of slaughter of the Jews and then the eventual ending of the Jewish religion as such. Amazing.
Northcott calls this "dispensational" thinking from those Christians who are following the teachings of Biblist Charles Schofield, the Pentecostal Edward Irving, the dispensationist, Brethren leader John Nelson Darby and others. "According to Darby there are seven dispensations in human history, the first being the paradise of the Garden of Eden, and the last being the 1,000-year reign of saints referred to in Revelation 20.1 - 7." (p. 58)
The "angel" directing the storm, the "angel invoked by George W. Bush in his Inaugural Speech in 2001," Northcott advises us, "is more like a prideful fallen angel than a humble servant of God." (p. 178)
Northcott's position is certainly a giant step removed from that of the evangelical right in the United States. And it is always good to hear someone from within Christianity in opposition to the preemptive unilateralism of the Bush administration. However, I don't think the cause of humanity and this planet is furthered much by making distinctions between angels, good or bad. In a larger sense we are told to choose between the good angels of the West and the bad angels (or "devils") of the Middle East. Indeed radical Muslims call Westerners "devils" while conservative Christians term radical Muslims "evil."
What is needed is a foreign policy based on an empirical assessment of options directed not by supernatural powers but by rational, educated, experienced and hardworking human beings who love their children and their grandchildren and who recognize that they have a stake in the future of this planet. The fact that Northcott does a masterful job of exposing the apocalyptic underpinnings of the Bush administration's foreign policy and its desire for empire does not address the more general problem brought about by government in the throes of any religious foreign policy. True, a president with a true Christian ethic would be loathe to intentionally cause the death of tens of thousands of people by an unprovoked invasion of another country or to deliberately enrich his most wealthy supporters at the expense of the poorest people both at home and abroad. And it is true that a Christian president who eschews the premillennialist mumbo jumbo of apocalypse, rapture, hellfire and such would take better care of the environment. But the real essence of the American experience and the American political and governmental way of life is the separation of church and state. I would hope that in his next book the very articulate and learned Mr. Northcott would emphasize the need to keep those who believe in angels and devils away from the reigns of state.
My criticism aside, this book is a most impressive and devastating critique of the Bush administration's imperial designs written in a way that rivets the reader to the page. Let me quote a passage from the beginning of the chapter entitled, "The 'War on Terror' and the True Apocalypse" to give you a feel for the power of Northcott's prose:
When George W. Bush was invited in 2003 to be the first US President to make a full State visit to the United Kingdom, he travelled with an entourage of 700 people. The streets through which his entourage processed were cleared of all ordinary people so that they could not wave an American flag or hold up a placard of protest as he drove through London behind 5 inches of plate glass in the Cadillac Deville flown over for the purpose. His limousine drove in the midst of a procession of dozens of black cars and jeeps containing US secret service, armed militia, Presidential staff, and the keeper of the nuclear button that the President carries with him at all times in case of a sudden need arising for him to rain America's vast arsenal of nuclear weapons on a miscreant state. This was truly an imperial procession, the like of which London had never before witnessed throughout its long history. (p. 103)
A Flawed Text of Intriguing Ideas.......2005-09-22
From the international relations percspective, Michael Northcott has offered an intriguing theory on the impact of Protestant religious culture on US foreign policy. The core assumption is that "After the Civil War, evangelical pietists sought a new model of society to replace the traditional Puritan conception of a covenantal and separated church and they found it in the nationalistic enterprise of a 'civil millennialism' or a 'Christian republicanism.' ... This partnership involved a religious embrace of the doctrine of liberty, of America as the 'land of the free', which celebrated possibility and potency in politics and economics, science and religion." Northcott provides logical links between the implications of this religious culture and US policies, ranging from President McKinley's annexation of Hawai'i through President Wilson's advocacy of the 14 Points to the second Gulf War and US support for Israel. He also makes a strong theological argument against the "premillenialist" concepts of The End Time, the Rapture, and the Apocalypse as a future event, stating that Jesus is clear that the Apocalypse has been ongoing since the beginning of His ministry.
Given the importance of his theory (at least for international relations), it is unfortunate that Northcott undercuts his position with limited scholarship. For example, nearly all of Northcott's references regarding the Middle East policy and actions of the US since 1992 are from a single source: Andrew J. Bacevich's 2002 text, The American Empire. No citation or evidence at all is provided for such comments as "identification of Russia as a key actor in the end times fuelled the Reagan administration's full-on engagement in the Cold War, and that of some of his predecessors." The well-documented role of European colonial powers in fostering conflict between Native Americans and English-speaking settlers is ignored entirely...the list goes on. Most significantly, Northcott doesn't explain how US Presidents and Secretaries of State who have not been adherents of evangelical Protestantism (about 40 per cent have been Episopalians, Unitarians, and members of the Society of Friends) are influenced by "civil millenialism." Has it become an all pervasive ideology that affects Orthodox Jews like Senator Lieberman and Roman Catholics like President Kennedy? That seems to be Northcott's argument...in which case, it isn't clear why an apocalyptic vision is central to US foreign policy.
This book clearly provokes more questions than answers. As a supplemental reading, it is an important reminder that faith matters for the international relations behavior of Christians as well as Islamacists, but Northcott's central point is more provocative than convincing.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, published by Thomson Gale on October 1, 2005. The length of the article is 1982 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: American apocalypse.(An Angel Directs the Storm : Apocalyptic Religion and American Empire, God's Politics : Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It )(Book Review)
Author: Daniel Johnson
Publication:
First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Issue: 156
Page: 48(5)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Average customer rating:
|
An Angel Directs the Storm: Apocalyptic Religion and American Empire.(Book Review): An article from: Journal of Church and State
Derek H. Davis
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
 History
| Subjects
| Books
| Africa
| Americas
| Ancient
| Arctic & Antarctica
| Asia
| Audiobooks
| Australia & Oceania
| Books on CD
| Books on Cassette
| Europe
| Gay & Lesbian
| Historical Study
| Large Print
| Middle East
| Military
| Military Science
| Russia
| United States
| World
General
| Philosophy
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Politics
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Political Science
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| e-Docs
| Formats
| Books
Philosophy
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| e-Docs
| Formats
| Books
General
| History
| Subjects
| e-Docs
| Formats
| Books
General
| History
| HTML
| Formats
| e-Docs
| Formats
| Books
General
| Nonfiction
| HTML
| Formats
| e-Docs
| Formats
| Books
Philosophy
| Nonfiction
| HTML
| Formats
| e-Docs
| Formats
| Books
Political Science
| Nonfiction
| HTML
| Formats
| e-Docs
| Formats
| Books
ASIN: B000BGWZ56
Release Date: 2005-09-16 |
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Journal of Church and State, published by Thomson Gale on June 22, 2005. The length of the article is 559 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: An Angel Directs the Storm: Apocalyptic Religion and American Empire.(Book Review)
Author: Derek H. Davis
Publication:
Journal of Church and State (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 47
Issue: 3
Page: 646(2)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
Save the rainforest-not a question but a statement of fact. What good environmentalist would ever dispute it? Bruce Braun does; he goes so far as to ask, what is the rainforest? Who defines it? He examines the various practices-social, discursive and political-through which Canada's West Coast forests have been given meaning and made the site of intense political and ideological struggle. Departing from other work on environmental politics that assume the "forest" is a constant, The Intemperate Rainforest traces the way West Coast landscapes have been viewed and controlled by explorers, foresters, environmentalists, artists, scientists, adventure travelers, and Native peoples.
In 1993, dramatic political protests over logging in Clayoquot Sound in British Columbia propelled Canada's temperate rainforests onto the global stage. Celebrities and rock bands joined protests that, with over eight hundred arrests, were some of the largest acts of civil disobedience in Canadian history. Moving between these events and the histories and practices that produced these forest spaces, Braun reveals a complex postcolonial landscape in which a conventional politics of wilderness preservation is found lacking.
Bringing environmental studies into conversation with poststructuralist theory and postcolonial studies leads to a dynamic understanding of the forest as a historically contingent, politically charged object. Braun demonstrates how constructions of the forest are inextricably entangled with culture, race, nation, class, and colonialism in ways that trouble conventional approaches to nature and politics. Often portrayed as pristine landscape, he shows the forest to be an intensely cultural space inseparable from the primitivist fantasies, scientific discourses, and indigenous knowledges that constitute it. Displacing the language of wilderness, Braun proposes understanding the forest as a hybrid object that cannot be assigned to either "nature" or "culture" and also cannot be understood apart from the relations of power that infuse it.
Bruce Braun is assistant professor of geography at the University of Minnesota. He is the coeditor of Re-making Reality: Nature at the Millennium (1998) and Social Nature: Theory, Practice, and Politics (2001).
Customer Reviews:
Provocative, fascinating.......2006-12-09
I taught this book in a senior seminar (4th-yr undergraduate) Environmental Anthropology course in 2003-04. I was a little worried about assigning it b/c the theory can be very dense, but it turned out to be one of the more popular books in the course, full of ideas that students kept referring back to and using in their term papers. Because each of the chapters looks at the idea of the "forest" (and the processes through which it has been produced) from a range of perspectives, it's a fun book to teach in a seminar setting -- it can be approached from a lot of different angles, and is almost inherently provocative of debate. And it has great illustrations -- all of my students were "fooled" by the pseudo-satellite photos that Braun presents and goes on to deconstruct brilliantly.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Canadian Geographer, published by Canadian Association of Geographers on June 22, 2003. The length of the article is 1341 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: The Intemperate Rainforest: Nature, Culture and Power on Canada's West Coast.(Book Review)
Author: Suzanne E. Mills
Publication:
The Canadian Geographer (Refereed)
Date: June 22, 2003
Publisher: Canadian Association of Geographers
Volume: 47
Issue: 2
Page: 207(2)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Books:
- Why Orwell Matters
- Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi
- Words in a French Life: Lessons in Love and Language from the South of France
- A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
- A Leg to Stand On
- A Memoir of Jane Austen: and Other Family Recollections (Oxford World's Classics)
- A Year in the Maine Woods
- American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880 - 1964
- Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey
- As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master
- Sign Babies ASL Flash Cards, Set Two: Around the House
- Shakespeare's Counselor
- Rain of Fire: Air War, 1968-1975
- Photoshop Restoration and Retouching
- Polymer Physics
- Talking to Faith Ringgold
- Calvin Albert's Figure Drawing Comes to Life
- Portrait of the Tweed: A Celebration of the Borders Landscape
- A Glossary of Mycology
Ojibwa Warrior: Dennis Banks And The Rise Of The American Indian Movement
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse
Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance
Crow Dog: Four Generations of Sioux Medicine Men
Incident at Oglala - The Leonard Peltier Story
