Customer Reviews:
story was weak.......2005-05-11
I tend to agree with reviewer, Margaret Ogilvie, about this book. I was interested in learning more about style icon, Babe Paley, and her family and although the author did tell the interesting story of her upbringing (father was famous brain surgeon, Henry Cushing) and subsequent marriages of the 3 sisters, I found the story lacked substance. I didn't really feel I left the book knowing anything more about Babe Paley or her sisters. I learned, for instance, that Betsy married to FDR's son and they had a troubled marriage but it (Grafton's story) seemed like distant heresay. I've read great biographies and this was not one - I felt I was, as Margaret Ogilvie said, reading a compilation of newsclippings. I read through this book, unimpressed and rather disappointed. I'm hoping there are other books available about the Cushing sisters, specifically Babe Paley.
A Fascinating Family.......2003-08-19
The Cushing Sisters were an intriguing trio, by now largely forgotten except for their nearest and dearest. Groundbreaking neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing of Boston had three beautiful daughters born at the cusp of the 20th Century, but it was his wife who raised their girls with the single goal of making good marriages.
Daughter Betsey grew up to wed James Roosevelt, son of then-President Franklin Roosevelt, until she divorced him for the far-richer John (Jock) Hay Whitney.
Minnie married fabulously wealthy Vincent Astor, but not for long. Vincent subsequently married Brooke Astor, the sole survivor of this group of siblings and spouses and ex-spouses; Brooke has devoted her life to using Vincent's money for good works. And Minnie's second husband was...gasp!...not rich.
The beautiful Barbara, known as "Babe," first married socialite Stanley Mortimer, then divorced him and married the much richer founder of CBS Television, Bill Paley. Along the line, Babe became a fashion icon, the tastemaker of her generation.
These three women gave shape to the Jet Set of the 1950's and 1960's. In writing THE SISTERS, author David Grafton sheds light on a fascinating family and, in the process, Grafton also provides a snapshot of a fascinating moment in social history.
An era no longer . . ........2001-07-20
....Granted, not a great book - but a very good one. To me - this is a fasinating look at an era that exists no longer. These women led extremely interesting lives - not only in the people they married - but the way in which they chose to live them. Try and get a copy of this book - you won't regret it. It is one of my favorites.
A great topic - too bad another author didn't tackle it!.......2000-06-16
The only good thing about this book is that it has no grammatical errors or typos. This is the shallowist of biographies, probably gleaned from newspaper clippings. There are lists of who wore what at each sister's wedding as well as who attended and, later, lists of who was left exactly which items when the sisters died. In between is a vast nothingness, punctuated only with the barest details of the sisters' lives. We never do find out what they themselves are like - surely the whole point of a biography.
Book Description
A feat of historical detection--the most significant, andcertainly the most enthralling, book on American prehistory to appear indecades.The greatest "unsolved mystery" of the American Southwest relates to theAnasazi, the native peoples who by the 11th century converged on ChacoCanyon (now New Mexico) and built a flourishing cultural center thatattracted pilgrims from far and wide, a vital crossroads of the prehistoricworld. The Anasazis' accomplishments--in agriculture, in art, in commerce,in architecture and engineering--were astounding, rivaling those of theMayans in distant Central America. By the 13th century, however, the Anasazi were gone from Chaco. Vanished.What was it--drought? pestilence? war? forced migration? mass murder orsuicide? Craig Childs draws on scholarly research and a lifetime ofadventure and exploration in the American Southwest to pursue the mysteryof their disappearance. Considering many possibilities, he points the wayto a new understanding of how a vibrant civilization collapsed.
Customer Reviews:
Childs has done it with this book..........2007-09-11
It's been a long time since I was thoroughly captivated by a book but House Of Rain has managed to do just that. Craig Childs is arguably one of the finest non-fiction writers today. For those of us who live and breathe the Great Southwest, Child's descriptions will bring back vivid memories of Sleeping Ute mountain in the distance and standing where the Ancients stood at Mesa Verde, Hovenweep, and Chaco. For those reviewers who felt like they needed maps and an answer, you can get maps at the visitor centers all bound up in glossy little books with equally glossy descriptions of people and places. This is not one of those books - it's so much deeper. This book is not a souvenier, it's a vehicle that takes you to places that a relative few will ever see and even less will understand. Sometimes, there is no final answer - there's just the lingering questions. That's part of what makes it so interesting.
Excellent Read With Interesting Personal Point of Views.......2007-09-06
This is the first book by Craig Childs that I've read. I will say it is an excellent book on the Anasazi. Craig has spent his whole life in the desert Southwest and appears to be quite knowledgeable about his subject. If you are the least bit interested in knowing a bit more about the Anasazi but don't want to read a "dry" scientific book about the subject, this is "the book" for you. Craig has travelled, worked and talked with many southwest Archaeologists who study the Anasazi. His discussions on the Anasazi are not boring and dry and his writing style is superb. I have a passing interest in the subject matter and this is one of the newest books on the subject and based on reviews of his other books, bought this one. I'm glad I did. Craig covers some controversial areas in regards to the Anasazi and where they went. They didn't disappear, their ancestors are still here, spread out over the southwest. He hits on a few quite creditabal possibilities and presents material to support them. I not being an expert on the subject but none the less interested and with some of my own ideas, I think Craig is on to something in regards to some of the reasons for the abandonment of the ancient sites across the entire southwest not just the Four Corners area commonly attributed to the Anasazi. Craig's descriptions of his backcountry travels are excellent and gives the sense that you are there with him which makes it even more enjoyable to read. This one is a keeper which I know I will read over and over again.
House of Rain, A Great Read.......2007-08-16
If you'd like to take a journey into the SW United States looking for the "missing" Anasazi, you should crack open this book, and delve into Craig Child's riveting journey. Child's style of writing puts you there with him, and he's very skilled at creating images that draw you into the adventure.
House of Rain .......2007-07-07
Craig Childs and "House of Rain" took me to places I've been and most importantly, to places I've been unable to experience. As I was reading this descriptive narrative of the Southwest that I love so much, I felt I was walking right beside him...excellent!
Exception read for the non-archeologist interested in the Anasazi.......2007-07-06
I already own several of Craig Childs books which I enjoy reading so that I can vicariously explore the canyons with him. This book is Exceptional. I bought it just last week at the Anasazi Heritage Center near Mesa Verde and Canyons of the Ancients while vacationing there with my wife and granddaughter. Living in Utah, we make yearly trips to the Moab area and southeastern canyons of Utah always hopeing to find a ruin to explore and photograph. This book is great for the non-scientist but those interested in the cultures of the Southwest like me!
Book Description
The workings of Western intelligence in our day--whether in politics or the arts, in the humanities or the church--are as troubling as they are mysterious, leading to the questions: Where are we going? What in the world were we thinking? By exploring the history of four "cultures" so deeply embedded in Western history that we rarely see their instrumental role in politics, religion, education, and the arts, this timely book provides a broad framework for addressing these questions in a fresh way.
The cultures considered here originated in the ancient world, took on Christian forms, and manifest themselves today in more secular ways. These are, as John W. O'Malley identifies them: the prophetic culture that proclaims the need for radical change in the structures of society (represented by, for example, Jeremiah, Martin Luther, and Martin Luther King, Jr.); the academic culture that seeks instead to understand those structures (Aristotle, Aquinas, the modern university); the humanistic culture that addresses fundamental human issues and works for the common good of society (Cicero, Erasmus, and Eleanor Roosevelt); and the culture of art and performance that celebrates the mystery of the human condition (Phidias, Michelangelo, Balanchine).
By showing how these cultures, as modes of activity and discourse in which Western intelligence has manifested itself through the centuries and continues to do so, O'Malley produces an essay that especially through the history of Christianity brilliantly illuminates the larger history of the West.
Customer Reviews:
Review of John W. O'Malley's "Four Cultures of the West"........2005-01-04
What I most enjoyed about this book was that a noted historian stepped out of the usual role of more detailed analysis of a particular period and took the long view about the main streams of culture winding through Western history and Christianity. In this sense it is a risky book. O'Malley pulls it off, showing both his understanding of history and his power of more synthetic reflection. I don't know anything like it. It provides the reader with tools or categories of thought for his or her own reflections on history and culture. It is a book full of examples asking one to find one's own examples and to try out O'Malley's "four cultures" as a way of understanding and interrelating major figures of the past or present. I found it a very helpful review and integration of my own lifelong education in the humanities. I would particularly recommend it for capstone or synthesis courses in university core curricula or honors programs. I keep buying more copies of this book and giving it to people who are most likely to appreciate its utitily in the education in the liberal arts tradition. It is hands down the best book I have read in the past year.
Stephen V. Sundborg, S. J.
President, Seattle University
A Guide Book for Today .......2004-12-16
This is a wonderful book that feels like Vivaldi and reads like a Bach fugue. Full of life, kindness and compassion, this book is an easy read. It is open, inclusive and daring in its scope and purpose: to map out the four dominant motifs or cultures of the West.
These four cultures are more like four distinct personality types. Each culture has its "characters" galore and the author does a good job of letting us experience the different types of character that make up each of them.
By leading us through each culture and showing us how each develops from within, we are able to participate, with the author, in their reconstruction. This gives the reader a hands-on sense of their make up and how they operate.
What this book offers is a visceral feel for each of these cultures in their uniqueness. It is this feeling, and not some abstract attempt at categorization, that teaches us how to pick up these motifs whenever and wherever we may encounter them. It teaches us to how to discriminate these processes through pattern recognition.
This technique makes it easy to understand and feel the real distinction between the academic culture (Culture 2) and the liberal arts culture (Culture 3). I consider this the most important part the book.
The section on Culture three is must reading. It is a simple, clear exposition of the power and responsibility of the liberal arts to build character and train leaders. Surprisingly the traditional home of liberal arts education was not in the universities.
This raises some interesting questions. If the liberal arts do not belong in academia, where do they belong and how does one actually learn to be a liberal artist? What are the traditional functions of the liberal arts and how did they get side tracked as "academic disciplines?"
We tend to assume that a liberal arts education is a college education. This may not be the case and this book will tell you why.
In this sense this book can be used as a guidebook and road map to make sense of our current confusions. Used as a mirror, it points out exactly what is missing in today's colleges and professional development programs. Hence this book is must reading for educators and corporate trainers.
I can not over recommend the importance of this book for anyone interested in understanding the forces at work in today's world. These four cultures are perennial and learning to pick them up in everyday settings can give you a huge edge. Failure to do so is a recipe for frustration and confusion.
Gaining familiarity with these four cultures is probably a good way for "westerners" to develop compassion and deep-seated understanding for non-western cultures. Multi- cultural studies begin at home.
What is your cultural type and what are the "cultural settings" you most often find yourself in (at work, at play, with friends, etc)? This book might help you to find your spiritual home while also helping you to understand why you tend to avoid, resent or dismiss other "cultural types."
These are powerful claims. In my opinion this is a powerful book. It is well worth buying and reading.
A gem.......2004-12-15
This book is a find - it captures something critically important about the modern West and will have you thinking for years to come. In many aspects, it's a very classical and a very Catholic book. Thus the way O'Malley shows how all of that shapes our culture today will come as all the more refreshing and incisive. It is not a long book you will read slowly and once, but a short book that you will first read quickly, and then again and again more carefully.
Customer Reviews:
How Sidney Mintz feels.......2006-07-12
"González is one of the most eloquent and important of Puerto Rico's contemporary writers. He rightly criticizes the vision of the past by which Spanish governance is gilded, while deep divisions within Puerto Rican society are glossed over. Any serious student of Puerto Rico, whether in literature, history, or the social sciences should be familiar with this essay."
-Sidney Mintz in The Americas
Many may not agree.......2006-06-02
I thought this was a great book. Many may not agree because it says that our culture was an African culture. My stepdad doesn't see it like that. He says our culture has african presence but not completely and african/caribbean culture. But this books shows that it was, and it was invaded by Europeans later on. I recomend you read it. the one by Jose Luis Gonzalez: Puerto Rico: the four storeyed country
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Mary Wells (Alive in Four Fascinating Books)
James Franks
Manufacturer: Falcon Distribution
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ASIN: 096571733X |
Book Description
This digital document is an article from National Catholic Reporter, published by National Catholic Reporter on April 8, 2005. The length of the article is 919 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 clash of cultures: how four subcultures shaped christianity.(Book Review)
Author: Darrell Turner
Publication:
National Catholic Reporter (Magazine/Journal)
Date: April 8, 2005
Publisher: National Catholic Reporter
Volume: 41
Issue: 23
Page: 14(1)
Article Type: Book Review
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Four Cultures of the West.(Book Review) : An article from: Christianity and Literature
Brennan O'Donnell
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
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ASIN: B000E1104A
Release Date: 2005-12-22 |
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Christianity and Literature, published by Thomson Gale on June 22, 2005. The length of the article is 2006 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: Four Cultures of the West.(Book Review)
Author: Brennan O'Donnell
Publication:
Christianity and Literature (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 54
Issue: 4
Page: 615(4)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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Four Cultures of the West.(Book Review) : An article from: Theological Studies
John W. Padberg
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
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ASIN: B000F3UDRM
Release Date: 2006-03-21 |
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Theological Studies, published by Thomson Gale on March 1, 2006. The length of the article is 798 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: Four Cultures of the West.(Book Review)
Author: John W. Padberg
Publication:
Theological Studies (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 67
Issue: 1
Page: 206(3)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Historian, published by Thomson Gale on June 22, 2006. The length of the article is 566 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: Four Cultures of the West.(Brief article)(Book review)
Author: Michael R. Lynn
Publication:
The Historian (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 68
Issue: 2
Page: 396(2)
Article Type: Book review, Brief article
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Commonweal, published by Thomson Gale on April 8, 2005. The length of the article is 2255 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: Religion Booknotes.(Book Review)
Author: Lawrence S. Cunningham
Publication:
Commonweal (Magazine/Journal)
Date: April 8, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 132
Issue: 7
Page: 24(5)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
Meet SNIFFY, THE VIRTUAL RAT! Using this CD-ROM and lab manual, you'll get a hands-on experience in setting up and conducting experiments that demonstrate the phenomena of classical and operant conditioning using Sniffy the digital rat. Sniffy includes 40 exercises that cover every major phenomena typically covered in a Psychology of Learning course. The CD-ROM comes with a Lab Manual that walks you through the steps necessary to set up classical and operant conditioning experiments that closely resemble the experiments discussed in learning texts. Throughout each, a series of "Mind Windows" allows you to visualize how Sniffy's experiences in the chamber produce psychological changes.
Customer Reviews:
No replacement for a real rat.......2007-03-27
This is an easy way to spare a living subject's life. Being able to "isolate Sniffy" and speed up time during a programed experiment is handy. However, if you've ever experienced working with a real rat, Sniffy may leave you disappointed. It feels like a computer generated set of shaping expectations -because that's what it is. I certainly would have never invested in this product if it hadn't been required for class.
Sniffy is the best.......2006-03-17
Este programa es lo mejor para ensenar a una rata y asi no estar molestanto a las ratas verdaderas. Es una herraminta fabulosa para ensenar.
Average customer rating:
- Sniffing out a good introduction to operant and classical conditionaing paradigms
- Great little tool for students
- worst experience of my college career
- Recommended for psychology students
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Sniffy: The Virtual Rat: Pro Version 2.0
Tom Alloway
Manufacturer: Wadsworth Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD
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Introduction to Learning and Behavior
ASIN: 0534633617 |
Book Description
Now you can reinvent the lab experience without using live animals! Sniffy, an incredibly realistic software package developed by psychology researchers Lester Krames, Jeff Graham, and Tom Alloway at University of Toronto, provides a virtual rat laboratory environment. And Sniffy is published by Brooks/Cole for an unbelievably low list price of 40.50! Sniffy The Virtual Rat is a popular, affordable program for Macintosh (published) or Windows (due January 1996), which allows you to explore the principles of shaping and partial reinforcement in operant conditioning using a virtual rat named Sniffy. You'll learn by doing--conditioning your own rat--and you'll receive many of the benefits of true animal experimentation with none of the drawbacks associated with using real animals. The Sniffy software comes packaged in the back inside cover of a brief, hands-on Student Lab Manual (120 pp.) that walks you through the steps you'll follow as you condition Sniffy to perform up to 15 behaviors. Sniffy's On-line help is also available to you as you work through Sniffy's repertoire of conditioning behaviors. But don't just take our word for it! Here's what the ECONOMIST had to say in a recent review about Sniffy. Some student have qualms about experimenting with animals in their science classes; some teachers have qualms about asking them to. People who may have no objection to the use of animals for genuine research find their suffering and sacrifice on a purely pedagogical altar harder to stomach...Now there is a rat-friendly alternative: Sniffy, a digital rodent programmed by researchers at the University of Toronto...Sniffy mimics a caged rat. Starting with Sniffy pacing around its barren virtual box, the student gradually trains the rat to press a bar above a food dispenser. Students seem to get the same sort of insights out of the screen version as they do out of the live one...So addictive is this training procedure that Sniffy's creators have organized cont
Customer Reviews:
Sniffing out a good introduction to operant and classical conditionaing paradigms.......2005-09-27
Sniffy offers a very good introduction to the basic concepts of both operant and classical conditioning paradigms. The authors are careful to make a discrimination between responses which are elicited, and those which are emitted.
It has been several years since I, as a psychologist, was in training for the motivational psychology area involving the use of live laboratory animals. Sniffy, although certainly not a substitute for animal training within the more advanced areas of operant and classical paradigms, certainly does meet muster with the basic orientation to S-R, S-d, and UCS-CS associations.
It certainly brought back many pleasant, and unpleasant memories with my personal association of training rats in running mazes and performing conditioning paradigms. Sniffy is a very good program for demonstrating the introductory phases of basic bar press -- bar click -- food Association. I was pleasantly surprised by the realistic look and actions of Sniffy and the inginuity of the various possible designs of the experiments.
The cumulitive recorder serves as a basis for the student to remain at Sniffy's window as one never knows when data will be lost if the cumulative record paper is not changed timely.
In reading some of the negative comments peratining to the program made by others frustrated with the time it took to initially "condition" Sniffy to the bar or other tasks, it seemed to me the discriminative stimuli within the responses by students was simply that those who were proficient in making appropriate successive approximations to the goal were simply more successful (requiring less time) than those who were not able to identify and impliment the correct successive approximations.
For more advanced procedures such as operant/classical overlap, DRO schedules, DRL schedules, and the effects of preconditioning on negative transfer of training (perhaps even retroactive inhibition?) obviously use of live laboratory animals with instrumentation from a resource of quality operant chamber/Skinner box equipment such as Lafayette Scientific is clearly indicated.
Sniffy is, in my opinion, an excellent introduction to classical and operant conditining methods and certainly serves as an adjunct to a basic behavior modification course prior to use of live animals in a lab, or may serve as a stand alone adjunct for a general basic introduction to psychology course.
I recall some smelly days working in a research area where our introductory students did not have the advantage of working with animals which virtually did not smell. The days of Ogden Lindsley, Baer, Monrose Wolf, Nate Azrin, & B. F. Skinner would have been much less noisome if "Sniffy" would have been around.
I liked it and would use it if I were to teach an introductory course, and for preparing more advanced students entering their inital sojurn into an animal lab.
Jerrell L. Driver, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist
Health Services Provider Certified
Great little tool for students.......2004-11-18
I have completed all of the exercises in the book and software, as well as using it to provide training to my students. I have found that it does exactly what it states it will do...give the student exposure to the basics of operant conditioning in an environment that does not allow or cannot afford live laboratory animals.
Is using Sniffy as good as using a live animal? No, but it is not intended to be. Neither is it as difficult as training a live animal. The excercises can be completed relatively quickly...usually in less time than is indicated in the book. Training a live animal, including monitoring food intake, controlling environmental variables, etc., requires considerably more time.
If you are an instructor debating about whether to use this as opposed to using live rats; use the live rats if you have the facilities and budget. If not, do not hesitate to select this product. It fills a niche very nicely.
worst experience of my college career.......2004-03-26
My Learning and Behaviour class used this book because budget cuts took away the real animals. I honestly believe the experience of using sniffy was the worst I had through my entire time in college. Note: If you do not have the exact programs on the back of the book it will take a little more effeort to make it work. Also, if you have Microsoft Works instead of Microsoft Word, the graphs are nearly impossible to create.
The professor had us do every single exercise in the book and they take a lot longer than you would think. My class started taking turn doing the exercises and photocopying them for each other because we were all spending at least eight hours a week just on the exercises, that does not include book work and other material for the class. When the prof found out he was mad but he wasn't spending hours on this each week and come to find out he had never tried the program before giving it to us, we were his lab rats! If you are an instructor, please do the exercises yourself first and make sure the program is worth using in your class. If you use the accelerated time the exercises are pretty pointless, you might as well just read the book because you are not actually watching sniffy. It is my opinion that having a virtual rat was a good idea but does not pan out as well as thought. I still believe that you would learn more from real rats.
Recommended for psychology students.......2001-02-07
This is a great way to learn about classical and operant conditioning, especially for the student of psychology. The textbook does put things at a very basic level, which may annoy some who already know the basics of conditioning. However, don't be discouraged. The major strength is the software that enables you to do simulated conditioning. Working with both the textbook and software is an excellent way to learn about conditioning. All the courses that I have done covering conditioning have been theoretical and I enjoyed being able to apply the knowledge.
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- War In The West
- A chronicle of hope
- Feeling the West
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The Redrock Chronicles: Saving Wild Utah (Center Books on Space, Place, and Time)
T. H. Watkins
Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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ASIN: 0801862388 |
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As a collection of geological and climatic phenomena, the earth is a scarred, bent, cracked, and agitated wreck of a place. Nowhere is this more evident than in Utah's redrock canyon country, which is among the most spectacular terrain not only in America but in the world. These extraordinary lands lie at the heart of the Colorado Plateau--130,000 square miles of uplifted rock sitting like a huge island in an earthly continental sea, surrounded on all sides by the remnants of once-active volcanoes. Although the Colorado Plateau includes portions of Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, in no other part of any other state are its complexity and time-constructed beauty illuminated more brilliantly than in southern Utah. Tourists and outdoor enthusiasts by the millions visit and revisit the area because there is no place else on earth quite like it.
In The Redrock Chronicles, T. H. Watkins, one of America's best-known and award-winning writers on the environment and history, focuses on southern Utah's unprotected lands in a loving testament to its warps and tangles of rock and sky. Combining history, geography, and photography, the author reports the full story of the region -- from its violent geologic beginnings to the coming (and going) of pre-Puebloan peoples whose drawings still adorn rocks and caves there, from the Mormon settlement of the 1840s and 1850s to the great uranium boom of the 1950s, from the beginning of tourism and parkland protection in the 1930s to today's controversial movement to preserve millions of acres of wild Utah land in the National Wilderness Preservation System. Indeed, the account of that revolutionary movement is told here in all its color and complexity for the first time.
Writing from his own personal experience and extensive research, an appreciative Watkins takes readers on a tour of the Grand Staircase of plateaus, moving from the utterly wild triangle of Kaiparowits Plateau, with its erosion-sculptured mesas, tablelands, benchlands, and canyons, to a more welcoming kind of verdant wilderness that sits northeast, across the rolling desert scrubland of Harris Wash, in the red-walled canyon of the Escalante River. The author has spent much time hiking and camping here among the isolated buttes and mesas, and he draws a vivid portrait of the area's highlights: Comb Ridge, a 90-mile wall of 600-foot cliffs; Waterpocket Fold, an even more spectacular monocline to the northeast of the Escalante River, stretching a hundred miles; the Henry Mountains; Hump of Bull Mountain; Cataract Canyon; and the San Rafael Swell, an enormous oval some 2,200 square miles which rises just north of Capitol Reef National Park.
But The Redrock Chronicles is not simply a celebration. Watkins concludes with a spirited call for the preservation of the unprotected wilderness that gives the land its character and color. He offers the legislative device of wilderness designation as the necessary means of saving this plateau country that is not marked by one or two or even three or four scenic marvels but by an enormous kaleidoscope of geological diversity whose impact on the senses can set the mind to reeling with every turn.
Customer Reviews:
War In The West.......2000-12-23
Having recently moved back to the mid-west after living in the west for four years, I am amazed at the lack of awareness or information on what many describe as the War in the West. Before you protest that War may be to strong, consider: Employees of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the U.S. Forest Service, and other federal employees in certain areas of the west carry sidearm's and long rifles; government vehicles have been firebombed; anonymous threats directed at government workers are routine; and county commissioners have authorized bulldozing or roads into National Parks and Monuments. Add to this volatile situation the recent decision of the Forest Service to charge a fee to anyone desiring to walk into a national forest and proposals to limit, or eliminate, logging and drilling in large sections of government land in the west and you have the makings of a real, well...war. Oh, did I mention the decision to increase the amount ranchers must pay to graze their cattle on public land? Needless to say, that has been a real popular decision among western ranchers that consider their right to use public lands as sacred. Speaking of sacred, the environmentalist movement had made itself real popular as well by proposing that millions of acres of land in the west be placed in the National Wilderness Preservation System. Such a designation would effectively remove it from any use by the public other than those associated with hiking. No way in or out except by foot, period. Then there is the proposal, gaining credibility and supporters, to decommission Glen Canyon Dam and drain Lake Powell. Some folks in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Phoenix have some concerns about this endeavor. While this battle is being waged geographically in the west, it is over public lands that belong to all citizens, including those of us that live a long day's drive to be even close to the action. In looking at the available literature on the myriad of issues in this war I find, as usual, a lot of publications that are long on rhetoric and short on real information or facts. I treasure the book that make's it argument in an honest, heartfelt, straight-forward manner. I may not agree with the opinion or argument of the author but I can respect their honesty and sincerity. Such books are few and far between. Edward Abbey did it with Desert Solitaire. Wallace Stegner did it with Coda: Wilderness Letter in The Sound of Mountain Water. The late T.H. Watkins has done it with The Redrock Chronicles. If you want a concise, upfront, spirited argument for the preservation of an area that many consider ground zero in the environmental war in the west, this is one of the best. Watkins, an award-winning writer, historian, and scholar has written an eloqquent testament tothe redrock country of southern Utah that is destined to become a classic. In just 163 pages, Watkins provides the reader with the history, geology, politics and sense of place in both the written word and with stunning photographs, that capture the mystery and complexity of a land under siege. This is one of those rare books that will capture your heart and spirit regardless of your political leanings in this war. It does so because Watkins has managed to write a love story so unique and touching that it could only come from what he calls the "home of his heart." Southern Utah's wild country is not for the timid, spandex-attired tourist on a carefully planned, scripted vacation. This 130,000 square miles of the Colorado Plateau was chosed by Brigham Young as just the kind of wild, desolate, forbidding place to send his followers in order that they might practice their particular brand of religion in peace and solitude. It is an area where a young wanderer from California could find spiritual comfort and disappear without a trace (Everett Ruess.)It is such a desolate place that during the 1950's the Atomic Energy Commission considered it expendable should fallout from atomic testing in Nevada drift northward, which it did. Why then, all the fuss over such desolate, forbidding land? Because it's there and because it weighs so heavy on the heart to see it destroyed, even on the altar of so-called economic development. Because, as Watkins stated shortly before he died,"I am helplessly addicted to this place, this wondrous geographic puzzle of canyons turning in on themselves, of upthrust plateaus and big blisterlike mountains, of multicolored rocks all layered and bent and broken, of curling rivers dammed by beavers and shaded by grandfather cottonwoods, of horizon-wide sweeps of sunlit emptiness and gracile unknown places where darkness hides and will not tell its name." After reading this gem of a book there will be many readers that will wonder about what was lost with the building of Glen Canyon Dam. One thing is for sure; those that advocate its decommissioning will likely garner some additional supporters. Love stories are like that.
A chronicle of hope.......2000-08-11
This brief eloquent book is a treasure. The history of the battle for Utah wilderness is a story that needs to be read by everyone who visits the redrock deserts and National Parks of Utah, and by everyone who lives in the region. Our astounding wild landscapes are not there by accident, but because there are people who love and defend them. The photos show places that would be protected if America's Redrock Wilderness Act were passed into law. These are the places that could be lost forever if public lands were privitized (as wise-use and sagebrush rebel groups would like) or managed for industrial tourism, resource extraction and grazing (as the BLM seems inclined to do). I hope that in the future this book becomes a triumphant chronicle of the vision and persistance that saved Utah's public lands wilderness instead of a sad chronicle of what was lost.
Feeling the West.......2000-03-28
Living in Utah, the battle over wilderness is a continual part of my life. And being an environmentalist, it is an important part of my life. There are 9.1 million acres up for wilderness designation in this state, but because of opposition from mining, timber, grazing, and off highway vehicle users, the process is slow- going. T.H. Watkins does an admirable job of making the reader feel the spirit of the west and the heart of the battle... which should make one realize the importance of wilderness designation, especially for these last few million acres. The Redrock Chronicles is not a political commentary, nor is it easily dismissed propaganda from the environmentalist faction. It is simply a writer's statement about the utter importance of wild places.
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