Civilized Creatures: Urban Animals, Sentimental Culture, and American Literature, 1850--1900 (Animals, History, Culture)

Book Description

In Civilized Creatures, Jennifer Mason challenges some of our most enduring ideas about how encounters with nonhuman nature shaped American literature and culture. Mason argues that in the second half of the nineteenth century the most powerful influence on Americans' understanding of their affinities with animals was not increasing separation from the pastoral and the wilderness; instead, it was the population's feelings about the ostensibly civilized animals they encountered in their daily lives.

Americans of diverse backgrounds, Mason shows, found it attractive as well as politic to imagine themselves as most closely connected to those creatures who shared humans' aptitude for civilized life. And to the minds of many in this period, national prosperity depended less on periodic exposure to untamed, wild nature than it did on the proper care and keeping of such animals within suburban and urban environments.

Combining literary analysis with cultural histories of equestrianism, petkeeping, and the animal welfare movement, Civilized Creatures offers new readings of works by Susan Warner, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Charles W. Chesnutt. In each case, Mason demonstrates that understanding contemporary relationships between humans and animals is essential for understanding the debates about gender, race, and cultural power enacted in these texts.

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Smart strategy for 94-feet of defensive intensity

Book is awesome and a welcomed addition to my coaching style

Zone Press Variations for Winning Basketball (The Art & Scienceof Coaching Series)
Cliff Ellis
Manufacturer: Coaches Choice Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1585181773

Customer Reviews:

Smart strategy for 94-feet of defensive intensity.......2004-05-17

"Zone Press Variations for Winning Basketball (second edition)" by veteran Division One basketball coach Cliff Ellis offers several smart strategies for implementing 94-feet of defensive intensity.

The "slide & trap" and "dogging" press in this handy book are explained in an easy to understand fashion. Moreover, Coach Ellis includes good teaching drills to perfect the many presses in this text. Chapter one defines the shape of the zone press. Subsequent chapters detail procedures and ways to attack an offense with a "full-court" and "half-court" press. In addition, the final chapter is dedicated to the super important process of knowing when and how to regroup into a zone after the pressure press.

I keep this book in my coaching bag and constantly take it out during those long breaks in AAU tournaments to review what we did right as a team and what we need to continue to work on. Recommended.

Bert Ruiz

Book is awesome and a welcomed addition to my coaching style.......1999-05-19

This book is informative and easy to understand. I will be putting most of this book to use next season with my varsity boys' basketball team. It explained a couple of questions I had about some of my own presses. A must buy for any coach.

Zone Press Variations for Winning Basketball

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Zone Press Variations for Winning Basketball
Ellis Cliff
Manufacturer: Parker Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000LAVQAC

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Zone Press Variations for Winning Basketball
Cliff Ellis
Manufacturer: Parker Pub. Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OIWI3U

Customer Reviews:

As good as it gets........2007-03-10

I believe the previous review is too critical of this text. Of the other Russian books of this type with which I'm familiar (501 Russian Verbs, Big Silver Book of Russian Verbs), none approach the amount of material in 5000 Russian Words. Simply stated, it has virtually every verb in these books, plus many more verbs and non-verbs. Almost every inch of each page is covered with text. It is NOT a dictionary, but it does have most words you're likely to use (for everything else, pick up the Katzner dictionary). It may not be perfect, but it's the best book of its kind.

Also, I would argue geographical terms such as the names of US states are important conversational components. As someone about to move to a Russian speaking country, I imagine knowing the correct spelling and use of my home state is going to be useful in explaining where I come from.

hate it.......2007-02-26

awful. i stupidly read the reviews of it before glanicing through it. much of the vocabuary is worthless or geography oriented. do you really need to know how to say the 50 states in Russian? how about "concrete mixer"? on top of that, after reading this book you will know how to name every instrument in a full orchestra ("french horn")...but nothing more conversational, topical and rudimentary. advanced words and verbs are almost totally left out. the book includes TOO many cross-cultural words such as "astronaut", "institution", "dissertation" etc. The conjugations for them are rather simple; thus, they have no business in being within what should appear to be a book for advanced students. granted, the book does include some essential words with irregular declensions such as "wood" and "lake". But WHAT about all the rest of them??? This book is rubbish.

The best resource for Russian language.......2006-10-13

This is simply the most important reference work in Russian - along with a good reference grammar and a good English-Russian-English dictionary (Kenneth Katzner is best for American words, but it's best, I've found to buy him PLUS Oxford) - that you will ever possess. You MUST have it. Buy it NOW. I've started to peddle these around our Russian students and am getting people to bite quite a bit on it. I have never NOT found a word I've looked up in it, along with full conjugation and correspending perfective/imperfective verg(if verb). Same with nouns. I get full inflection, with sometimes other information.

Absolute must for students.......2006-04-24

If you are a Russian student, this and the Kenneth Katzner dictionary are the best $60 you can spend. I've had this book for 11 years and rely on it when writing formally in Russian. Worth every penny.

A Beginner's Lifeline.......2006-01-28

I remember my own copy from 13 years ago quite well. One of the most entertaining aspects of this inflection/conjugation guide is that you can open it up to the basic form of any of the vocabulary words, wave the book, pages spread, in a non-Russian-speaker's face, and then proceed through 3 more full pages of inflacted forms, bragging "these are all forms of the same word."

Ideas like case inflection, grammatical gender, and verbal aspect (just to start) are pretty much alien to a native English speaker, this book proves an invaluable guide in the beginning years of study.

I only docked it one star due to the incredibly poor production values of Slavica Publications at the time when this text was published.

Book Description

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

Customer Reviews:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

Average customer rating:

The best of the best
Lots of ideas
Celti Knotwork Explained?
Perfect addition to Book of Kells, Lindisfarne Gospel
Good intro to Celtic Art

Celtic Art: The Methods of Construction
George Bain
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0486229238

Book Description

This unique volume clearly demonstrates simple geometric techniques for making intricate knots, interlacements, spirals, Kellstype initials, human and animal figures in distinctive Celtic style. Features over 500 illustrations.

Customer Reviews:

The best of the best.......2007-09-04

THis book is the most helpfull i ever seen. You buy this, and you need no other book to draw celtic knots.
You start with no knowledge and you really can make extraordinery things after a feel training. Its really works.
I strongly recommend.

Lots of ideas.......2006-03-20

This book was just what I needed. It has lots of ideas and how to make them.

Celti Knotwork Explained?.......2003-12-31

Acknowledging the complexities of this book's approach to Celtic Knotwork, Iain Bain, George Bain's son, has published a much more approachable introduction in his Celtic Knotwork, Constable, London 1986. It was reprinted last in 1992 but is unfortunately out of print. Used copies are available and I would stongly recommend Iain Bain's book as a most helpful place to begin. The senior Bain's book is however an informative reference, a far cry above the usual "picture book for colouring" approach.

Perfect addition to Book of Kells, Lindisfarne Gospel.......2003-05-15

How Bain has managed to come up with this method is beyond me, but God bless him for it! I have used his methods for creating cross stitch patterns, a complicated matter but well worth the results.

Good intro to Celtic Art.......2003-02-09

I can't add much more than the last previewer. But it is a good introduction to Celtic Art and patterns, plus he covers its history and shows you how to even difficult patterns. Drawing Celtic Artwork is not easy, a gifted artist and craftsman Bain makes it look easy but its not. Howeverf if you practice the basic patterns you can get pretty good at it in a reasonable period of time. I have several of Aidan Meehan's books and this one is by far the best for beginners imho. Use Meehans works when you can replicate a good many of the patterns found here.

It is also a fine resource for the more elaborate patterns which are not covered very well in other works. Many of these patterns can be transferred to leather, clay etc, you name it.

Overall if you only get one book on Celtic Art get this one and with a bit of practice your effort will be rewarded.

Average customer rating:
Celtic Art The Methods of Construction
George Bain
Manufacturer: Constable
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000QRCWMQ

Average customer rating:
Celtic Art: The Method of Construction
George Bain
Manufacturer: Peter Smith Pub Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0844647063

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CELTIC ART: THE METHODS OF CONSTRUCTION
GEORGE BAIN
Manufacturer: CONSTABLE
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000S6ZY48

Average customer rating:
The Methods of Construction of Celtic Art
George Bain
Manufacturer: William Maclellan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0000CI2JY

Average customer rating:
The Methods of Construction of Celtic Art. Part 5. Lettering
George Bain
Manufacturer: William Maclellan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000J1FQPO

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Celtic Art. The Methods of Construction of Celtic Art. Part VI - Zoomorphics
George Bain
Manufacturer: William Maclellan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000KL63OQ

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CELTIC ART : THE METHODS OF CONSTRUCTION
GEORGE BAIN
Manufacturer: CONSTABLE
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000S6ZNG2

Average customer rating:
Celtic Art The Methods of Construction

Manufacturer: Constable
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000HOH304

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