Book Description
Sleeper Cars and Flannel Uniforms brings baseball legends to life through the eyes of Elden Auker, a submarine-style pitcher in the American League from 1933-1942.
Customer Reviews:
If you love baseball stories............2007-06-01
Ive read many a baseball themed book and this is one of the better ones! Elden Auker, a pitcher with the Tigers/Red Sox/and Browns circa 1935-42 shares his memories of baseball back in the old days before the days of high salaries and player agents. The book is full of interesting short stories about players and other people that Mr. Auker knew during the course of his life (he died last August at the age of 96).
Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys reading about old time baseball.
Sleeper Cars and Flannel Uniforms.......2007-05-13
An excellent look into the personal and professional life of someone who experienced the "glory days" of professional baseball. Elden Auker is the "Forrest Gump" of MLB. It was like listening in on his private conversations with a close friend, recounting the many and improbable encounters of the greatest player you never heard of.
One of the Best.......2005-04-14
This is a great baseball book. Elden Auker is honest to a fault in his opinions and his rememberances are a treasure. You just don't expect a retired athlete to have such skill as an author. Auker is a gem. I wish he wrote more books. Elden Auker was not a hall of famer on the field but he was a hall of famer in life.
A gem!.......2004-07-26
Inside baseball through the intelligent and unassuming eyes of a little-known, but great, athlete of the 1930's and 40's, and a successful businessman thereafter.
A storied life.......2002-04-15
Elden Auker, with the aid of celebrated New York sportswriter Tom Keegan crafts an autobiographical piece spanning his 90+ years. Auker was born in rural Kansas and graduated as a three sports star from Kansas State university. Deciding that his quickest road to success was through baseball, he signed a professional contract to pitch for the Detroit Tigers.
Auker developed an unorthodox submarine delivery which allowed him to enjoy a creditable 10 year major league career. Along the way he befriended some of the greats of the game such as Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Babe Ruth and countless others. Auker was wise enough to create a life for himself outside the game. He evolved into a highly thought of executive in the abrasives industry. As such he rubbed elbows and played golf with some of the paragons of both politics and industry.
The book is essentially an array of amusing stories which formulate the backbone of Mr. Auker's long and fruitful life. This was one of the better sports type books I've read in that Auker feels no compulsion to be politically correct on many issues.
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- Decline of the Californios: A Social History of the Spanish-Speaking Californias, 1846-1890
- Classic California - Here We Come!
- it was informative but with so many names,a bit confusing
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Decline of the Californios: A Social History of the Spanish-Speaking Californias, 1846-1890
Leonard Pitt , and
Ramon A. Gutierrez
Manufacturer: University of California Press
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The History of Alta California: A Memoir of Mexican California
ASIN: 0520219589 |
Book Description
In his enduring study of Spanish-speaking Californians--a group that includes both native-born Californians, or Californios, and immigrants from Mexico--Leonard Pitt charts one of the earliest chapters in the state's ethnic history, and, in the process, he sheds light on debates and tensions that continue to this day. In a new foreword for this edition, Ramón A. Gutiérrez discusses the shaping and reception of the book and also views this classic work in light of recent scholarship on California and ethnic history.
Customer Reviews:
Decline of the Californios: A Social History of the Spanish-Speaking Californias, 1846-1890.......2005-09-06
Wonderful genealogical source for those with ties to the "Californios"...great reading for anyone interested in early California history as well.
Classic California - Here We Come!.......2000-12-28
Pitt's history of the decline of the Californios is an extremely important record of California's past. Few contemporary Californian's are familiar with the rugged settlers who came to this place and created a society of their own. Largely abandoned by the Spanish and then Mexican overseers, robbed by the invading Americanos, the Californios left their indelible mark upon us. their influence is subtle now, but we still live in the various "ranchos" they founded and ranched. This is a very accessible and well-written piece of scholarship. It is simple enough to qualify as a popular history, well researched enough to be taken seriously in academia.
it was informative but with so many names,a bit confusing.......1999-05-21
pitt certainly gives us a descriptive account of life in California before the gold rush and after. his referring to so many names and families did make the whole story of the people a little confusing.
Book Description
Since its first publication more than eighty years ago, The Decline of the West has ranked as one of the most widely read and talked about books of our time. A sweeping account of Western culture by a historian of legendary intellect, it is an astonishingly informed, forcefully eloquent, thrillingly controversial work that advances a world view based on the cyclical rise and fall of civilizations.
This abridgment presents the most significant of Oswald Spengler’s arguments, linked by illuminating explanatory passages. It makes available in one volume a masterpiece of grand-scale history and far-reaching prophesy that remains essential reading for anyone interested in the factors that determine the course of civilizations.
Customer Reviews:
BEWARE - THIS IS NOT WHAT IT SEEMS TO BE.......2007-08-10
This paperback edition is NOT "The Decline of the West" by Ostwald Spengler. It is an abridgement of that work perpetrated by one Arthur Helps apparently from a German abrdigement by Helmut Werner and an English translation (of the original or the abridgement?) by Charles Francis Atkinson. So if you buy this, you're not buying Spengler (leave aside the issue of how much of Spengler you're getting when you have to read it in translation - who would want to give up all the literature in the world written in languages he doesn't read?). What you're buying is sort-of Spengler.
Now, in fairness, at 400+ pages this isn't exactly the Classic Comic Book retellng of Spengler's long and complex work. But it isn't that work either. And it is very hard to tell this from the Amazon announcement or description of the book. And that's simply wrong. It's a deception. I don't think it's one that was done to trick people. It's more likely the product of sloppiness or inattention.
Some people may believe that a shortened Spengler is just fine for their purposes. I have no disagreement with them. My concern is that those who, like me, would never have even considered buying an abridgement of a book like this can be misled into doing so by an inaccurate description of what the book is.
So now I have a book to return instead of to read. I hope to save someone else that inconvenience.
RACE.......2007-07-19
Several reviews comment on the use of Race as an issue in DOTW. One suggests that Race is not a principal issue because it is seldom mentioned.
These miss the point. In thinking of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Racial nature of European Civilization is just taken as a given, hardly needing reinforcement more than rules of math. Blacks, etc were seen as presences within the culture, not part of the culture. It may seem odd to one growing up in 2000 + but that is how it was.
A brilliant and prophetic work .......2007-05-21
A brilliant and prophetic work ... The West, western culture, and peoples, will by all accounts, be finished off, in the next 50 to 100 years.
For example -- An afro chinese Italy is probably the future.
The thing about spengler that you have to ask is "was he wrong ?" ... does western civilization carry with it the seeds of its own destruction ?
The west no longer contains in any great quantity the animating ideas which other cultures such as islam or even the japanese still contain... hence we continue to take comfort in our former achievements even as we are dissolving and other peoples, civilizations, and ideas rise to the top. Not necessarily better peoples, civilizations, or ideas - but stronger more dominant ones. The western liberal humanist, is many things, but he does not dominate. Other, less nuanced ideologies have the advantage of a "home base", simplicity, and a direct knowledge of what it wants. Our poor liberal humanist is a millipede with a thousand easilly injured delicate antennae and no concrete goals.-- in short, he is an easy prey.
So Spengler may be correct when he claims that the west is in a winter phase of its history. Spengler definately "writes from upstairs" without an ax to grind, and has a worldview that spans centuries ... his views can't possibly be understood by contemporary sects or propagandists whose historical/philosophical views barely go back 40 years or depart much from today's newspaper headlines and the "causes of the day".
Fascinating and thought-provoking.......2006-03-30
The Decline of the West is the magnum opus of Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), a German historian and philosopher. In it, Spengler rejects the idea that the future of the West (or indeed of any culture) is an open-ended advance from the primitive past to an ever more glorious and expansive future. Instead, cultures (including the West) experience an almost organic history of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.
According to Spengler, the West moved out of its Summer period with the dawn of the nineteenth century, and into a Civilization phase. This phase is dominated by mega-cities, and money and atheism come into ascendance. And what lies in the future? Caesarism, and a long period of stagnation in the arts and sciences.
Now, the above summary is inevitably bound to be overly simplistic, even to the point of being misleading. The Decline of the West was originally published as two books, and it is a deep and erudite philosophical look at the history of the world, so any small summary is bound to be insufficient to do it justice.
Having heard this work referenced so many times, I decided to read it for myself. In fact, though it does present a deterministic view of history, it does not propose a West that is about to collapse and be swept into the dustbin of history (as some people want it to). In fact, this is a cogent, penetrating look at history, which certainly seems to accurately predict how the West has developed from the first book's initial publication in 1918.
Now, I must admit that like many scholarly books of the era, this one has a dense, thickly argued text that makes for some very heavy reading indeed. But, if you are willing to devote time to the reading of this book, and more time to digest what it has to say, you will be rewarded with one of the fascinating and thought-provoking look at the modern West. Are we at the End of History, or the end of the West? Read this book and find out.
An Early Postmodern View of the History of the West.......2006-01-26
This postmodern chronicle of the western world by early 20th century German historian and philosopher, Oswald Spengler, offers a lot for today's reader despite its flaws. It's an incredibly rich and complex analysis, attacking the causal factors of the development of western culture on many fronts simultaneously: historically, scientifically, artistically, architecturally, ecclesiastically, and so much more. This book is capable of describing many different aspects of western culture to many different readers, depending on who they happen to be and what their interest in western history is. I will only mention three aspects of Spengler's work in my review, since these aspects are what grabbed my attention, bearing in mind that the book contains much more than what I touch on here.
A. Spengler, a westerner himself, constructs detailed accounts in describing the historical development of western Europe. One of his main theses is a distinction between culture and civilization, which he derives from a credible, if difficult to falsify model for a universal cycle of human cultural growth, followed by decline into advanced civilization. For those familiar with biological theory, Spengler's model is essentially a growth curve. The familiar biological model is the lag phase, then the log phase, followed by the stationary phase, and ending in the death phase; which repeats itself virtually ad infinitum. In Spengler's model he labels these phases, respectively, after the seasons, beginning with spring and ending with winter. The spring-time of a people is a mythical phase, where settled economic life grows from a rural peasantry. This is followed by the summer, or cultural phase of strong and dynamic growth in all important aspects of a people; of economic, religious, martial, and other relevant human impulses. Then comes the fall, where dogma forms. Where adult-like reason takes root from the innocent cultural phase and puritan oversight of national religion and government begin to set hard like concrete. Finally, the winter of a people is when the national personality and traditions lose their effectiveness. Civilized and urbane money and economic issues tend to become preimminent over the cultural issues. Technology and irreligion become rampant. This cycle is not a modern phenomena, but repeats itself as seen in ancient Egyptian, Roman, and Aztec civilizations; and again, currently in America.
B. Spengler's style in elucidating a history of the west, and developing an hypothesis of universal and collective human behavior, is punctuated by the era in which he wrote: the early 20th century. Much of the historical analysis before and after this era lacks the materialist, psychoanalytical, and structural influence that typified thinking and literature when Spengler wrote. Published in 1926, The Decline of the West contains that biting air of criticism and structuralism so fecund in those times. This critical structural analysis gives Spengler's work a sharper contrast and greater depth of field than would likely have been possible for a writer from before or after Spengler's time. This is not to take away from Spengler's native insight and acuity, which was nevertheless, likely heightened by the charged literary atmosphere of early 20th century Germany.
C. The way Spengler psychoanalyzes the structure of history through art and architecture is almost wholey absent from the majority of standard historical analyses. Reading Spengler makes one aware of this common lack. This is one of the strong points of this book, since art and architecture express so much of what a culture is and why it thinks in the ways it does.
All in all, despite the typical fallacies of sex and race Spengler repeats, once could say this is a seminal work describing western development and thought which no student of history should leave unopened. An advantage of reading this book today instead of when it was originally released is the internet. If you lack truly comprehensive powers of recall regarding the art and architecture Spengler uses to analyze his subject cultures, then using the internet to pull up the various paintings, sculptures, and architectural examples is most helpful as an active part of reading this work; turning what could otherwise be a dry, boring read into something more alive that captures what the author is trying to convey. If possible, bring up the actual images of the art and architecture Spengler describes at the moment you're reading about it. This gave me a more graphic and focused perspective of the cultures he analyzes. Reading this book was like experiencing a kaleidoscope of mind candy.
Customer Reviews:
Didn't want it to end.......2003-02-07
This book is great. Very informative and well written. I learned a great deal about my cultue, heritage and ancestry. It left me with a thirst for more.
Opus Magnus.......2002-05-11
When writting this book, Dr. Rouse put a lifetime of research and studies on the Indians of the Caribbean into one work.
Since Rouse is considered the "Dean of Caribbean Archaeology", this book is a "must have" for anyone interested in the region and its native inhabitants.
Very few people have worked for so long, in so many locations and with such dedication as Dr. Rouse.
Exceptional Book! A MUST READ!.......2000-05-27
There were so many things of the Taino Indians I didn't know about and this book gives such a wonderful view of their lives and heritage you think they were your neighbors next door! This book makes you realize how important it is to keep your heritage alive.
Este libro es la Biblia del tema taino.......2000-03-28
Irving Rouse, nos presenta un libro muy completo y bien investigado sobre el tema taino. Todos aquellos estudiosos que quieran aprender sobre esta etnia, la etnia amerindia que tuvo el primer fatal encuentro con Cristobal Colon , debe leer este libro.Este libro es la Biblia sobre el tema taino.
Book Description
• Choice 1988 Outstanding Academic Book
• Named one of the Best Business Books of 1988 by USA Today
A veteran reporter of American labor analyzes the spectacular and tragic collapse of the steel industry in the 1980s. John Hoerr’s account of these events stretches from the industrywide barganing failures of 1982 to the crippling work stoppage at USX (U.S. Steel) in 1986-87. He interviewed scores of steelworkers, company managers at all levels, and union officials, and was present at many of the crucial events he describes. Using historical flashbacks to the origins of the steel industry, particularly in the Monongahela Valley of southwestern Pennsylvania, he shows how an obsolete and adversarial relationship between management and labor made it impossible for the industry to adapt to shattering changes in the global economy.
Customer Reviews:
Thank you!.......2005-08-05
My dad - who died a couple of years ago - published this book. He was very proud of it, and I think he would have been very pleased to see that Amazon customers are responding to it favorably.
Sad, true, and cautionary.......2001-08-14
I read this years ago, and I thought it was an excellent analysis of the collapse of the steel industry in Pittsburgh, filled with compelling tales of individual people.
The books feels like a Greek tragedy, in which the protagonists are doomed to a slow slide towards the edge of a cliff. Institutionalized conflict overcomes the efforts of people from both labor and maangement to halt, or at least slow the inevitable slide.
For people who think that the current dot.com crash is a serious downturn, this book offers a very good counter-perspective. When an area loses 100K jobs in 10 years, and whole towns essentially close, that's a *real* downturn.
On the other hand, there's always hope. Pittsburgh has bounced back, and has a much more diversified economy. The last time I visited, I could see the sky, which was more difficult in the steel days. To grasp those days, either see the early Tom Cruise movie "All The Right Moves", or for depth, read this book.
good book.......1999-07-21
This is an excellent book for anyone who wants to learn about what went wrong in this basic industry. Not only a study of the collapse of the steel industry in the Mon Valley, the book is also a study of the pain of postindustrialization that swept the country in the 1980's. Esentially, the author is writing about a national trend, but focuses on the Pittsburgh area, which is really a microcosm. It is also a good look at what happens when unions and management can't get their acts together.
Final closing: LTV.......1998-05-30
Coke works at Hazelwood closing chapter on demise on steel in entire region. Read also: Homestead, with new forward by author, best one-town summary
Product Description
In this engrossing and highly controversial philosophy of history, Spengler describes how we have entered into a centuries-long "world-historical" phase comparable to late antiquity. Guided by the philosophies of Goethe and Nietzsche, he rejects linear progression, and instead presents a world
view based on the cyclical rise and decline of civilizations. He argues that a culture blossoms from the soil of a definable landscape and dies when it has exhausted all of its possibilities.
Despite Spengler's reputation today as an extreme pessimist, The Decline of the West remains essential reading for anyone interested in the history of civilization.
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After the Boom in Tombstone and Jerome, Arizona: Decline in Western Resource Towns (Wilbur S. Shepperson Series in History and Humanities)
Eric L. Clements
Manufacturer: University of Nevada Press
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ASIN: 0874175712 |
Book Description
The literature of the West abounds with colorful sagas of mining boomtowns that sprang up after the discovery of an important mineral deposit, but the decline of those towns is rarely treated as more than an epilogue to the story. Focusing on two Arizona towns that had their origins in mining bonanzas--Tombstone and Jerome--historian Eric L. Clements offers a rare study dissecting the process of bust itself--the reasons and manners in which these towns declined as the mining booms ended.
Tombstone was the site of one of the great silver bonanzas of the nineteenth century, a boom that started in the late 1870s and was over by 1890. Jerome's copper deposits were mined for much longer, beginning in the 1880s and enduring until the 1930s. But when the mining booms ended, each town faced its decline in similar ways.
Clements describes the towns at their peaks, the nature of the mines and the diverse populations that came to work in the mines or in the business of the towns, the development of civic organizations and amenities like libraries, and the role of mining companies. The process of decline was more complex than superficial histories have indicated, and Clements discusses the role of labor unions in trying to stave off collapse, the changing demography of decline, the nature and expression of social tensions, the impact on institutions such as churches and schools, and the human responses to continued economic depression. But bust involved more than a steady decline into ghost-town status, Clements discovers: the towns' remaining residents employed countless strategies to survive and reduce household expenses, and community organizations developed relief programs to help the most needy and wide efforts to diversify their economies. In the end, both towns reinvented themselves as ! late-twentieth-century tourist attractions.
"After the Boom in Tombstone and Jerome, Arizona" describes in vivid detail the decline of two major mining boomtowns. It also addresses significant questions about the nature of capital and settlement in the mining West, and about the characteristics of town building and survival. This is a major contribution to the history and interpretation of the American West, meticulously researched, astutely argued, and extremely readable.
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Inishkillane; change and decline in the west of Ireland
Hugh Brody
Manufacturer: Schocken Books
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Binding: Unknown Binding
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ASIN: 0805235353 |
Books:
- Sources of the West: Readings in Western Civilization, Volume II (5th Edition)
- Strength And Honor: The Life Of Dolley Madison
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- The Alamo: An Illustrated History
- The Apprentice Mage, 1865-1914 (W.B. Yeats: A Life, Vol. 1)
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