No comments about A Misfit's Manifesto: The Sociological Memoir of a Rock & Roll Heart.

1 comments about Beyond Loyalty: The Story of a Kibei.

1. This book is how to remain a Knight & Gentleman and to pursue your Life Mission against all the odds of life.

   Dr. Kiyota had a dream since boyhood to educate college students about the Western and Asian cultures & philosophies. He successfully achieved his mission by having been teaching for over 30 years as a professor and as a sensei. I am taking his class, "Kendo: Integration of Martial and Liberal Arts" and I am happy to have finally found my Sensei. There is a lot to learn from him as an open-mind and objective individual!!!

   The book is full of documented facts, critical thoughts, and beautiful language. I have invested about 15 hours of concentrated reading with only 3 breaks: to sleep and to eat. In overall, Dr. Kiyota is the person one should meet in life and to shake his hand!!!

No comments about One Barber's Story: From Sicily to America.

No comments about Three Latin American Sociologists: Gino Germani, Pablo Gonzales Casanova, Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

5 comments about The Man Who Tried to Save the World: The dangerous life and mysterious disappearence of Fred Cuny.

1. What an inspiring man Fred Cuny was en what a great story.
   A lovely written book about a great man. There should be more people like him. Great book.



2. This is definitely a captivating tale about a horrid and bizarre situation, but one wishes for a little less of the author's not so interesting tale. The author strikes me as a bit too macho, exaggerating the risks and missing out on important details of Fred Cuny's life (focusing too much on the macho aspects that the author clearly favors). Definitely worth a read but don't be turned off by the author's overblown bravado.



3. I selected this book because I'd read the author's previous work, wanted to know more about Chechnya, and was curious about a man who would try "to save the world." Anderson's telling of the tale of Fred Cuny is illuminating and thought-provoking. I wanted to share this story with others who also knew little about the world where Cuny lived and worked. The continuing unrest in Chechnya makes this book as timely as it was on the day it was published.
   
   Scott Anderson leads the reader down the shadowy path taken by Fred Cuny and leaves one with the certainty that uncertainty like that faced by Cuny still prevails in many parts of the world. Recent events demonstate that even between the relatively safe borders of the USA, terror remains a daily concern. The people of Chechnya and other places where Fred Cuny worked to help others have known terror much longer.



4. I read this book a couple of years ago, and just recently reread it. What a fascinating story. For those who are interested in humanitarian crises, and what it takes to make things happen; within the myriad non-governmental organizations and governments as well; this is the book for you.
   Cuny's CV reads like a laundry list of the disasters (mostly manmade) of our time. Bosnia and Chechenya are the two most prescient issues in this book. Anyone who engages in these types of activities in the future would do well to read this book to see what kind of energy and fortitude it takes to get things accomplished.
   Cuny's demise is a tragic story with an even sadder ending, but I will let the reader get there on his/her own...
   A joy to read about such a remarkable person.



5. I read this book several years ago and remember only a few things clearly. First, I gained a real appreciation for the degree to which Western governments leave their citizens in relative peace. Second, the story of Grozny was absolutely horrifying. And third, the author has done a wonderful job of finding a story to tell, and telling it well.
   
   Kudos to Mr. Anderson for bringing this (well, the parts that are knowable) into the open.

1 comments about Pierre Bourdieu (Key Sociologists).

1. While not always terribly kind to Pierre Bourdieu (okay, the truth is that this book erupts into scathing critique at some points!), this is a very readable overview of Bourdieu's main ideas and books. Jenkins sees tremendous value in the questions Bourdieu poses and in how he always theorizes from a point of view informed by field research, and in still trying to get a grasp of this French theorist's work, I found this book equally valuable to my own purposes.

No comments about Josiah Nott of Mobile: Southerner, Physician and Racial Theorist (Southern Biography Series).

2 comments about The Amazing Story of the Tonelli Family in America: Twelve Thousand Miles in a Buick in Search of Identity, Ethnicity, Geography, Kinship and Home.

1. Spett.le Redazione, Questo Ente desidera entrare in contatto con lo scrittore Statunitense di origini italiane Bill TONELLI. Mr. Bill TONELLI h radattore di Esquire ed autore de "La sorprendente storia della Famiglia TONELLI in America ". Il volume citato dovrebbe essere stato pubblicato dalla Casa editrice americana"PERSEUS BOOKS ". La ricerca del contatto con lo scrittore h tesa ad uno scambio culturale da realizzare prossimamente. Lo scrittore Bill TONELLI ha antenati provenienti dall'Italia, piu' particolarmente dal nostro paese, Nereto. Qualsiasi informazione sullo scrittore Bill TONELLI h gradita alla e - mail: comunenereto@itol.it oppure al numero di telefono 0861 / 855779 ove h sempre disponibile il Dott. Lucio ADDARII che sta curando la pratica riguardante lo scrittore italoamericano. Con l'occasione, distinti saluti. Lucio ADDARII



2. I discovered this only because my youngest cousin, who goes to Harvard, read it in a course and came home insisting that I read it too. I take a strong interest in my ancestry (I'm Italian American, the grandson of immigrants) and this book hit me right between the eyes. It is one man's search for the meaning of his ethnicity and all the goodness that comes with it, before it all slips away. Tonelli writes in a funny, quirky, totally absorbing style that's never dry or ponderous. But he's writing about some of the most deeply meaningful, even sometimes sad aspects of being part of a genuine community in a time when community in American seems (to me) to be on the wane. This is the kind of book that could (and should) have become a minor classic of literary nonfiction, and also a book that every ethnic American would want to read, but I gather it did not back in '94 when it came out. But if you can find a copy today, grab it fast and get ready for a thrill.

No comments about Endless Crusade: Women Social Scientists and Progressive Reform.

3 comments about Mary Wollstonecraft.

1. I truly enjoyed this book, as I had to read it for a paper. It tells of Mary Wollstonecraft and her travels, focusing mostly of life after A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman becuase it is heavily documented.

   This is not a simple book. I found myself going to the dictionary a lot but those words help in the showing of this book as an intelligent piece of work.

   Janet Todd has gone into a lot of detail when describing Wollstonecraft's life. If it described more, we'd be reading about how she held her fork and what exactly the bread looked like. Thoses details paint a more brilliant picture of MW than expected but can make the book move slowly. So much information is packed into the pages making the book a bit hard to swallow all at once.

   I sincerely recommend reading the book in more than one sitting.




2. This is a very good book. It is based on comprehensive research, extremely detailed, well written and sensitive. It is the best biography of Mary Wollstoencraft ever written and will remain so for a long time.

   The really curious thing that comes through is that Wollstonecraft was less of a feminist than one might think. In fact she was an intelligent, sensitive, somewhat high-handed and dominant, woman. Her dearest wish in life was to find a man worthy of her; her dearest fear, to be abandoned by him.

   At the time she wrote her most famous work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, she was thirty years old and a virgin. The volume drips with contempt for women less talented, and less chaste, than herself. This is what makes her interesting; she is a textbook-case. Is it possible that with her, as with so many others, feminism at bottom is simply an attempt by women who do not have a man to avenge themselves on those who do?




3. I had the pleasure of reading this book while doing research for my biography, "Theodosia Burr Alston: Portrait of a Prodigy" (Corinthian Books, September 2002). Mary Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects" (London: J. Johnson, 1792) had a profound influence on U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr, who became one of her earliest and most influential supporters in the United States. He immediately embraced Wollstonecraft's concepts of equal education and incorporated them into creating, through his teenage daughter, Theodosia, his model for the ultimate woman of the future: an exotic new intellectual hybrid embodying the education of a man with the natural qualities of a woman who possesses both the ability to reason -- and a soul (!!). Janet Todd's insightful telling of Wollstonecraft's life and her careful explanation of how Wollstonecraft's credo developed was both enlightening and enormously instructive. Todd's clear writing style makes her subject come alive. As a scholar writing a biography of Aaron Burr's daughter, I bought this book and read it because I had to. But I was so delighted with it that I then went back and re-read it because I WANTED to!