5 comments about Richard Hofstadter: An Intellectual Biography.

1. If you went to college and/or graduate school in the late 1950's or 1960's, chances are very good you read at least one of Richard Hofstadter's (1916-1970) books. Particularly "The American Political Tradition," "The Age of Reform," "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life," and "Paranoid Style in American Politics" were ubiquitous on college reading lists. And this was for good reason: Hofstadter many believe was the most incisive and insightful American historians of the first two-thirds of the 20th century. Coupled with his perceptive and innovative analytical abilities were writing talents that made his books fascinating to read.
   
   Until now, there has not really been a full-scale biography of Hofstadter. This book, by David S. Brown, fills that gap very nicely. Brown has well handled the central challenge of writing about Hofstadter--how much attention should be devoted to the books and how much to the man? Someone who was born in the 1960's, as was the author, might well wonder what all the excitement was about. Brown's excellent discussions of the various Hofstadter volumes will clue such readers into his approach, prejudices, accomplishments, and contributions to the writing of American history. One also gets a pretty solid feel for Hofstadter the man as well. Brown has interviewed many who knew Hofstadter: his students (such as Dorothy Ross) and his colleagues at Columbia. He scoured oral history collections and published recollections as well. One of the most effective dimensions of the book is that Brown incorporates discussions of some leading historical interpretations that appeared at the same time as Hofstadter's books--some agreed with Hofstadter, others took issue with various of his positions, and an interesting dialogue resulted.
   
   The research is solid; the writing flows very well, and the narrative is quite interesting. A helpful bibliographic essay, "The Search for Richard Hofstadter," concludes the volume and is quite useful. For anyone interested in the development of 20th century American historiography, or who is just curious about what was going on in this country's political history, Brown's book is a valuable and stimulating introduction.



2. Richard Hofstadter obeyed the unwritten rule: tenured liberal arts academics who teach at an "elite" university should make sure they are of great value to the Democratic Party. It is wise to place one's wet finger in the air to see which way the prevailing ideological winds are blowing. Was the admittedly great scholar a raving Left-winger? Nope, the reality is that Hofstadter may have been the most conservative member of the Columbia University faculty. Alfred Kazin even referred to him as "a secret conservative." There is little doubt, it must be added, that Hofstadter would have never had such a prominent and rewarding career had he been even slightly more right-wing. I suspect had that been the case, he would have been doomed to barely earning a living at a third tier school. The famous historian was a indeed a proverbial knee jerk liberal. He admittedly was no longer a Communist, but his secular faith in "New Deal" liberalism was near dogmatic. Furthermore, communism was possibly less dangerous that anti-Communism. Hofstadter was at best an anti-anti Communist. Republicans were deemed to be paranoid and reactionary. Left-wingers may occasionally get a little goofy, but they are essentially well meaning. It is those right-wing buffoons who are supposedly crazier than jay birds and warrant intense scrutiny. Thankfully, Hofstadter's commitment to rational thinking was sufficient to reject the radical left's attempt in the 1960s to take over Columbia's campus. The enemy was not always to the right. Sometimes it does reside on the left. These leftist students were nihilists, although perhaps unwittingly so, and not true reformers. If nothing else, Hofstadter deserves credit for realizing that a nonnegotiable line had been crossed. Biographer David S. Brown hits the nail on the head: "Hofstadter's selective use of the paranoid style brings to mind David Potter's earlier criticism of the status thesis. Like status, paranoia is a slippery concept that belies strict categorization and can be used indiscriminately to pathologize political opposition." "Always looking for the enemy on the right," continues the author, "Hofstadter never suspected liberalism's vulnerability to self-destruction."
   
   Richard Hofstadter also inadvertently harmed the American Jewish community. His unrelenting focus on anti-Semitism in some conservative circles blinded him to the far more dangerous threat posed by leftist extremism. One wonders what Hofstadter would say regarding Columbia University's current pervasive Jew bashing. David S. Brown's book is well worth reading. Conservatives should make sure to obtain a copy. It will almost certainly help them to better understand the inevitable collapse of our once great universities.
   
   David Thomson
   Flares into Darkness



3. I have read an except of this book, and a few reviews of it including all those heretofore posted on 'Amazon'. Thus what I have is an 'impression' of the book, and not an in-depth understanding.
   My impression is simply that it is a very good book. One reviewer Ronald Clark says that David S. Brown meets the challenge well of narrating both the story of the life, and the content of the books, or the intellectual development.
   This seems to me the key thing in a book of this kind. I recently read an excellent detailed biography of an important intellectual figure which went into every possible aspect of the daily life without confronting the ideas and the intellectual development. It simply did not do the job.
   Brown sees Hofstader as not simply a committed liberal, but as a political thinker who was able to react to the changing challenges he met throughout his life. He was an intellectual whose thought involved reacting to events, and not simply fitting them into a predisposed pattern.
   He has been faulted for misunderstanding and not doing real justice to ' conservative thought'. This may well be the case. But then again his major years of working and writing were years of such great Liberal predominance that this is in some way not surprising.
   Hoftstader is credited with being the most savvy and moderate of the 'New York Intellectuals' especially in regard to his relation to and support of the Democratic Party.
   In telling of the life Brown tells of Hoftstader's tragic loss of his first- wife, his successful second marriage. The father of two children, a son Dan from his first marriage, and Sarah from his second he seems to have been an excellent and responsive father. His son Dan speaks highly of him and of his irrevent sense of humor, a quality not especially felt in the books.
   My sense is that this is a responsible and respectable work from which one can learn much about an important American intellectual.



4. A very good primer on progressivism, liberalism and conservatism. Not a light read.



5. Richard Hofstader is one of the foremost US Historians of this century even though his career was less than half as long as Arthur Schlesinger's and included no service to an incumbent President. His work is especially noted for interpretations reflecting a multiethnic more urban America and also lessons from social theory. Immense prestige within the scholarly community was complemented by books that are readable and more `popular' than most histories. Almost all College Graduates, at least through the 70's will have read one or more of his books. Continually historians and others have been stimulated by discussions of "social Darwinism," "anti-Intellectualism" and a "paranoid style" in American politics as well as his `take' on American Political thought and the Progressive era.
   
   Interests in American intellectual history and in American historiography are central to this study. Insights on regionalism and politics in the academe add to the book. The Morningside and general New York intellectual environment are also evident. There is even some insight into the student rebellion of 1968 and its consequences.
   
   My own enthusiasm is partly personal; I attended Columbia as a History major starting in the same class as Hofstader's son Danny (although I graduated a year early). Many of the personalities mentioned, as well as guest speakers at the Graduate History Lounge like Hannah Arendt and Phillip Curtin were part of my experience and some of Hofstader's books enlightened History and Government courses. However, any historian and especially students of the US should find much of interest.
   
   David Brown does an excellent job in this "intellectual biography". There is probably no way it could be authored with the more exciting style of Hofstader himself. Nor will it find so broad a readership as books like "The American Political Tradition". It is a shame hat so many of Hofstader's works are out of print although this does reflect some further evolution in interpretation as well as new themes and approaches. Times have changed and the numbers of PhD's has boomed with ever more narrow studies and perhaps fewer stimulating interpretive books for the `educated reader'. As education has become increasingly more like job training and history as well as language and other substantial general education and critical thinking courses have reduced places in education intellectual and public discourse have eroded.
   
   Brown reinforces awareness that history is not dates and facts, that it is not neutral, and that it is an evolving effort to understand our own day and its origins. Intellectual history and analysis of historiography, together with the better comparative histories, are the source of more realistic and better understanding - a more than welcome and mature improvement over ideologues and shallow discourse prevalent today. Education in general and the study of history in particular, is no absolute assurance against stupidity of leaders and public discourse. Yet without the study of history such foolishness is common.

5 comments about Annapolis Autumn: Life, Death, and Literature at the U.S. Naval Academy.

1. I graduated from the Academy in 73 and it seems as if it hasn't changed a bit. It is as accurate a picture of what goes on inside that an outsider can have. If I didn't know better I would have thought that he was a graduate himself. I recommend it highly; not only for the picture that it gives of the Academy and the Midshippeople (I DON'T CARE IF IT IS A RANK) but because it is an accurate portrayal of much that is going on in this country today.



2. An interesting book. Despite his critics, Prof Fleming provokes some thought about the how and why of the Naval Academy, and in the process, he puts some interesting, fundamental questions out in the open. Is it enough that the Academy churns out Military officers? And if it were enough, why isn't it simply reduced to an extended Officer Training / Basic Training "curriculum"?
   
   In an on-going period of "battle hardening," it is commendable for an "insider" to continue to challenge a notion of single-mindedness in the context of the Naval Academy curriculum. While there is a conservative / liberal pendulum that is currently (and clearly) leaning toward the conservative side, simply accepting that the curriculum (and training) "is what it is" only promotes (and exacerbates) the notion that there is a single solution for producing an Officer. A Military Commission mandates an Officer's fidelity to the Constitution and its principles. It is beneficial for the individual to understand the reasons why this is the case as well as what those principles are. Without that understanding, we could quickly diverge into the blind leading the blind (for an enlistment demands the individual's obligation to those Officers). While some of the criticisms have merit and deserve consideration, it is a good thing that Prof Fleming is able to cogently articulate his opinions and bring to light the necessity of the midshipmen's complete development - rather than adhere to a one size fits all, single solution.
   
   While I'm still not sure I agree with all aspects of the book / Prof Fleming's thoughts (I plan to read it again), it is at least worth the discussion(s) necessary to see all sides of these arguments.
   USNA '96



3. In Annapolis Autumn, Professor Bruce Fleming gives the reader a rare look into Naval Academy culture with dignity, humor, and occasionally, the kind of candor that makes the brass blush. Having been not only a student, but as well, a staff member at Annapolis, I can tell you that Fleming hits the nail on the head.
   
   Fleming points out that while the US Naval Academy at Annapolis is a fine institution with a rich heritage, there are some glaring warts that could be easily removed, yet political pressure, stereotypes, and conformity all conspire to maintain a status quo beneath the brilliantly polished veneer. Considering the environment he operates, his courage in pointing out the proverbial emperor's new clothes is laudable, yet in my mind he has, without doubt, given something far more praiseworthy: the challenge of critical thought to his midshipmen - students who are indoctrinated daily into a military gung-ho dogma.
   
   Annapolis Autumn is not an exposé and although Fleming is not a dissident, his opinion periodically takes exception with the administration's official stance. He encourages today's military leaders to consider facets of culture and society that might have otherwise in the past been merely academic. Fleming pushes midshipmen to think outside their Academy boxes and use their highly developed minds to be better people on the whole as well as the exceptional naval officers the Academy is famed to produce.
   
   As an alumnus, I genuinely enjoyed Annapolis Autumn. As a free-thinking veteran, I applaud Bruce Fleming's willingness to speak his mind. Well written, eloquently supported, and easily digested, Fleming's book was a both a challenge and a pleasure.



4. Amidst many informative and entertaining pages about Annapolis, Prof. Fleming reveals two very shocking facts. One: About 50% of midshipmen do not meet the USNA minimum academic requirements, but are let in anyway, because of perceived needs in athletics and affirmative action. Two, clearly unqualified midshipmen, even those with serious psychological disablities, are allowed to graduate and assume potentially disastrous command positions because to prevent their graduation would reflect badly on the decision to admit them in the first place. Sounds like Catch 22, but it is unfortunately not fiction. There may be some broader social value in weighing factors other than character and ability in civilian schools, but in the military, I would think we would want the very best making command decisions, and not someone there for any other reason. When war is upon us, and lives are at stake, does anything else really matter?



5. This is just a terrible book. Poorly written, and filled with mush. No wonder the USNA is producing a bunch of politically correct graduates who do everything they can to get out of actually serving as a warrior. Don't waste your money on this--and think twice about sending your child to a school that could employ this touchy-feely teacher of mumbo-jumbo.
   
   Jim Webb's "A Sense of Honor" is still the best book about what the Naval Academy USED to be. This things reads like it was written by a flower child from Woodstock.

5 comments about Seven Days of Possibilities: One Teacher, 24 Kids, and the Music That Changed Their Lives Forever.

1. In this beautifully written and very moving book, Ms. Hartocollis not only tells the story of a young woman from Finland who, through her character, talent, and personality affected many children--and others--in a short time; she also, with a talent that many novelists would envy, captures inexorable human conflicts that, despite good instincts, can poison even the closest relationships. Anyone who cares about education, anyone who wants to be a teacher, and most of all, anyone who's looking for a great story about the most interesting people in the world--real people--should not miss this book.



2. I approached this book with some trepedation, worried that it might be just another pat, feel-good story. What a surprise and pleasure to find myself immersed in an enaging, memorable read, filled with characters who came alive and stayed with me. It was also a carefully wraught cautionary tale of all that's not right (and a bit that is) in inner-city public schools. I've since recommended it to friends and colleagues, all of whom have shared my enthusiasm.



3. 
   This is an exceptionally well-written work of non-fiction. The author, a noted columnist and reporter for the New York Times, distinguishes herself further with this book, which is her first. Writing with all the assurance and polish of a first class investigative reporter, the author, having covered education for five years for the New York Times, is in her element with the subject matter of this book.
   
   The book focuses on Johanna Grussner, a young Finnish woman, whose love for music took her from her native Aland Islands, an archipelago in the Baltic Sea located between the coasts of Finland and Sweden, to the United States, ultimately landing her in New York City. While furthering her quest to become a professional jazz singer, happenstance found her working as a music teacher in the Bronx at P.S. 86. There, in an inner city school that was run like a tight ship by its principal, a man who cared deeply for the school in his own rigid, uncompromising way, she was to defy all odds and make an impact that many will remember for years to come.
   
   Ms. Grussner would demonstrate to all what a determined, though idealistic, person can do to bring joy into the lives of children who may have their options for such limited by their own personal circumstances, as well as by a society that looks to pigeonhole students as if one size does, indeed, fit all. The author grounds Ms. Grussner's efforts to form a school choir in the context of the political and racial milieu of the New York City public school system, replete with all the political chicanery and requisite skullduggery involved in the running of a school in such an environment.
   
   The author's narrative is seamless and unsentimental, letting the strength of the story itself soar, rewarding the reader with a richness of detail about the school and those involved in its day to day activities. She provides the reader with three dimensional portraits of those who contributed to the seven days of possibilities, whereby twenty-four of Ms. Grussner's most musically gifted students traveled with her to her hometown in order to perform in a gospel concert. There, they discover that music is a universal language, and the week spent in the Aland Islands would be one that would long linger in their collective memories.
   
   This is truly an excellent book, beautifully written and immensely readable. It is a book that will keep the reader turning its pages until the very last one is turned. Bravo!



4. I read this book with great interest after having lived eight months myself in Finland back in the mid-1980's. My own upbringing in San Francisco in the 60's/70's was only in the Catholic school system, which had a hodgepodge of first-generation European kids, mostly Irish, Italian, some French and Polish, but all with strong ethnic identities at home.
   
   In Finland, poverty has haunted the people's memories for generations, going hundreds of years back under Swedish and Russian rule. The recent prosperity of the post-war years is a novelty for most, unless they were born in the 1970's and beyond. In this story, a girl from above-average priviledged rank in Aland, a Swedish-speaking (therefore, snobbier than the rest of Finland) island. Johanna grows up thinking herself better than others, and is heavily insulated from the rigors of life outside Aland, or outside Finland, good God. I disagree with Johanna's statement, through the journalist/narrator's words, that the Finns have a long-standing love of American black-sung blues. The Finns are much more lovers of classical music, their own mournful melodies and folk songs, and for dancing, there's always been the Finnish tango, waltz and polka, surplanted in the 50's by American rock. American Negro music was an underground taste, as it was in Russia, Germany, etc., due to its unsavory lyrics and lewd allusions. Young people in rebellion and city people in degenerate lives gravitated to it. The bulk of the Finnish population would have subconsciously spurned it, or found it an odd, interesting subculture from that big, fat, rich, white country over there, that USA, that land of immigration where Finnish ancestors fled from their poverty.
   
   If Johanna set out to become a jazz blues singer, she was already setting herself apart from the bulk of the population. A girl of her standing would normally attend a nursing, teaching or medical school, and strive for status in the community through the standard channels of higher education. Diplomas and degrees mean a very, very, very great deal in Scandanavia. Even those graduates who don't find work commensurate with their diplomas, who in fact are unemployed for years, are held in high regard, regardless! In AMerica, such lazing about would indeed bring derision, all the more when the person had education.
   
   I met many such young women in Finland, for they would gravitate naturally to me, a foreigner from wild and crazy San Francisco. Their fantasies about a free and easy life, far from the rigors of old-fashioned Finnish values and endless judgments, would run riot in their conversations with me. They would juggle anything, take any parental or governmental help they could, to spend years abroad away from the stifling, highly academic expectations of their families and communities. Those with money, such as Johanna with generous, tolerant and well-off parents, found their way to places like NYC to study music, even such socially approbrated sytles such as jazz singing. Those from her island would certainly think she is going through a young-years fling with foreign ideas, but that she would certainly come back when the economic crunch hit her after school years.
   
   So sure enough, here is the book about her economic struggles. If anything this story could be said to be, from Johanna's pooint of view, it was 1. to escape Aland and Finnish restrictions; and 2. to earn enough abroad to avoid going home. Her signing up for teaching a bunch of kids from the lower classes was just a fling, a slumming. She knew her parents would be able to take her back in a flash and pay all her medical bills. She was subsisting on that teacher's salary, knowing well she was no more fit to survive in the NYC than these minorities stuck in the Bronx on low wages.
   
   In Finland, with a quiet village school, and a strict, homogenous school culture, the children naturally are obedient and diligent. They are not in need of constant berating, since the whole of Scandanavia raises their children to be quiet, self-effacing, and considerate of others. Meanwhile, back in the Bronx, no matter what infusion of money, teachers, materials and high-minded dreams like Johanna, no matter how many free lunches, new playgrounds, sports uniforms or new buildings, the children themselves cannot succeed because their parents come from anti-intellectual cultures. Their parents value pleasure in the moment, workaday jobs immediately after high school graduation. They're not interested in their children's long-pleasure-deferring climb through university and professional schools. Especially girls are expected to fall straight into sex-related disasters, namely pregnancy, possibly prostitution. These cultures are more primitive and much more lenient. AS the narrator insists, the parents love their children and would give them anything in their power to help them.
   
   However, what do the Bronx Latino and Black parents want to give their children? Discipline, academics and a strong respect for academics and career? Or do they want to give them pleasures of the moment, new clothes, and rollercoaster-type thrills?
   
   There is a reason that Scandanavian children, regardless of relative income status, do well in the world. They were for generations poor, but very hard-working, serious-minded, religious in a Protestant direction, and respectful of others. They believe in SISU, the Finnish word meaning "endurance", not buckling in to obstacles. A Finn is not raised to think that, because his job pays low wages when he is young, that he should turn to drug dealing so he can get the car, the chicks and other thrills unavailable to low income people. Have a look around the USA: do Scandanavian children of last generation fall into such despicable lifestyles? NO, the parents would never allow it, even if they can only afford one pair of shoes for the kid.
   
   If anything this book will illustrate to a reader, it is the great contrast in culture between Finland and the lower-class New Yorkers from the black and Latino cultures. The actual income is not the point, so much as the total disregard for academics and self-control that these cultures breed in children.
   
   IT may be a curse to be born black in America, as it was a curse to be a Finn under the Swedes for generations, but the amount of violence and self-destruction amongst the blacks is clearly not just the doing of others in the USA, themselves immigrants from Europe.
   
   Johanna Grussner, semi-idealistic Finnish singer, knew well that it is not a question what she brings from her Protestant and strict country. If the children themselves go home each night to a lowbrow, victimologized home culture (let's not even bring up the lack of fathers in the houses, since that's just part of the self-desctructive black and Latin culture), no amount of exposure to higher values and self-discipline for a few hours of school time will help them.
   
   Amusing book!!! I would say that Johanna's quest to inject black American values into her home country through its "poor ol' me" spirituals may backfire if her own children think of themselves as victims in the next generation. When they refuse to study, rebel, get pregnant, take drugs and kill each other, because they think that it is the only way to "deal with life", God help Scandanavia, contaminated in such a way.



5. I read this book twice and I was extremely upset over the false accusations that I read. I have seen the dedication, devotion and love that the staff displays to the children. Also, as a mother, I send my child to this school because of the wonderful reputation that follows this school. Please note that the teachers work afterschool, Saturdays and even vacations so that the students have an opportunity to succeed in school. I find it totally inappropriate for someone who only saw a snapshot of the school and community to make all these assumptions without really seeeing what goes on. The children and parents of the community feel welcomed when they enter the building. They address the inner child not the outer with a paid vacation. I find it apalling to read all the criticism that the author and main character state about the school. You cannot compare the customs of one country with another. You can't use one vacation with the students as a basis for all the lies that were written. This book is poorly written.

1 comments about The Grand Old Man of Maine: Selected Letters of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, 1865-1914 (Civil War America).

1. While some in the Civil War community complain of "Chamberlain fatigue," it is difficult to gripe about this marvelous new collection of postwar correspondence from one of the most articulate officers on either side of the conflict.
   
   Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain survived the Civil War - including a horrible wound at Petersburg - to become one of Maine's most prominent citizens. His postwar career included four terms as governor of Maine, a stint as president of Bowdoin College, numerous business enterprises, and perhaps most importantly, many years as a writer and lecturer on his Civil War experiences.
   
   The correspondence included by editor Jeremiah Goulka covers nearly every aspect of Chamberlain's personal and professional life. Chamberlain's heartfelt letters to his family, especially those to his wife Fannie, reveal him to be a loving, thoughtful husband and father. His relationship with Fannie, stormy and difficult though it was for many years, survived numerous crises until Fannie's death in 1905.
   
   Chamberlain's Civil War experiences transformed him, and his separation from the army often left him feeling restless. In 1870, Chamberlain wrote to the King of Prussia and offered his services in Prussia's war with France. In 1898, Chamberlain contacted the Secretary of War to volunteer for the Spanish-American War. Even with all his postwar positions and projects, Chamberlain never quite filled the space in his soul left empty by the end of the Civil War.
   
   Critics of Chamberlain, in his lifetime and in our own time, claim that he inflated his role at Little Round Top in an attempt to horde the glory of that important engagement. At least one letter included in this volume refutes this criticism. In a January 1910 letter to Union veteran and author Oliver W. Norton, Chamberlain says of his brigade commander, Strong Vincent, "He was a noble man, and I have not known an abler commander in his grade. Nothing could exceed his skill and energy in taking the position on Little Round Top and the confidence he inspired in his subordinates. To this the result of the fight on the left at Round Top is very largely due [emphasis added]."
   
   The correspondence also clarifies an often incorrectly reported fact concerning the July 1913 fiftieth anniversary reunion at Gettysburg. Chamberlain, while he visited Gettysburg in May as a member of the planning commission, did not attend the July reunion. Chamberlain's doctor strongly urged him not to go due to his declining health, and he stayed behind in Maine.
   
   Rather than being castigated for his prolific eloquence, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain deserves the timeless thanks of everyone who studies the Civil War. Jeremiah Goulka deserves thanks as well, for his skillful editing, and for giving us a deeper understanding of a genuine American hero.

3 comments about The Emergency Teacher: The Inspirational Story of a New Teacher in an Inner City School.

1. How many employment opportunities require minimal or absolutely no experience required? I certainly didn't expect that teaching would be one of them when I first looked into substitute teaching.
   
   There are some areas in the U.S. where substitute teaching requires an actual teaching degree. These jobs are filled by newly graduated or retired teachers. There are other areas in this country where "some" college or simply a H.S. diploma is the requirement.
   
   The difference comes down to supply and demand economics. If you have an excess of talent in a small market, you will almost certainly need a master's degree to step into a teacher's role for the day.
   
   I just finished reading "The Emergency Teacher" that relates the first hand account of Christina Asquith's first year as a full time teacher at one of the worst schools in Philadelphia, despite being untrained and uncertified.
   
   Synopsis:
   
   "School District of Philadelphia, in desperate need of 1,500 new teachers, instituted a policy of hiring "emergency certified" instructors. Asquith, then a 25-year-old reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, joined their untrained ranks. More challenging than her classroom in the crime-infested neighborhood known as "the Badlands" are the trials she faced outside, including a corrupt principal, the politics that prevented a million-dollar grant from reaching her students, and the administration's shocking insistence that teachers maintain the appearance of success in the face of utter defeat..."
   
   She lasted a full 180 day school year and didn't result in the typical Hollywood ending.
   
   That's 179 more days than I would have attempted had I been crazy enough to try. I guess that's the difference between being young, idealistic and full of energy .vs. mature (re: much older), realistic and pooped.



2. Every teacher young and old should have this book. This book tells the tale of a new teachers struggle to get through to an inner-city school. Sure there have been plenty of movies with the same plot, but this account is great. Chirstina Asqquith writes with heart and soul, and you will really route for her in this inspirational story.



3. It is fair to note that had Christina Asquith taught in a more affluent part of Philadelphia or a middle class suburban community, she probably couldn't write a book about her one-year experience as a teacher. Before being trained as such (even trained teachers have to struggle in the beginning by learning on the job) she should not have accepted a teaching job from a district which would simply throw her to the wolves, as such. As she pointed out, a few teachers in this abysmal school were dynamic and great managers of their classes. And it seems true (was for me, at least) that it takes about three years to build ones teaching techniques--and maybe five years to really feel confident. But Asquith had an unfortunate placement in a tragically-run school.
   
   Nevertheless, Asquith's portrayal of the (reputed) worst school in Philadelphia (and too many others come close) is heart-rending and shocking, and the revelation an embarrassment to the district--let's hope.
   
   The author had it many times harder than I. How she held on for a full school year is a testament to her character in the face of the school district's incompetence. The book is more revelatory than inspirational, and though a fast and sometimes engrossing read it is rather depressing. I think a prospective teacher--who isn't desperate--would tend to not teach in a big-city public school after reading this account.
   
   I retired a few months before Asquith started her experiment in teaching, and my school (after at least 30 years of relative calm) was just starting to become infected by students creating bedlam in their classrooms and hallways. I had good control, was creative and motivational, but even my tolerence with the system forced me and other veterans in the school to take the early retirement incentive being offered by the state (so the district could hire two new teachers for the price of one veteran with higher degrees). We could see what was coming.
   
   Now, the reader will understand why 50 percent of new hires leave teaching within 3-5 years--the shorter time representing big-city public schools. Teaching can be very rewarding, but also one of the toughest jobs there is, and the emotional stress is equal to that of a police person "on the beat"--I've read.
   
   The following partial paragraph from page 98, gives a sense of the entire book:
   
   "I'd set out wholly single-mindedly to learn to teach, and suddenly my failure became a real possibility. I'd personally staked everything on suceeding, I'd given up my career, my Inguirer [Newspaper] friends... If I was failing and wasn't making a shred of difference, what was the point? How could I answer the question: How was your day?"
   
   A Non-Workbook, Non-Textbook Approach to Teaching Language Arts: Grades 4 Through 8 and Up

2 comments about My Life in Search of Africa.

1. well i realy hate thebook, why are you asking me that question about the book. leave me alone!



2. After hearing a speech of Clarke's on the radio, I was looking forward to this book. Unfortunately, it let me down.

   Clarke's writing lacks style - I frequently was wondering if I was reading a high school composition rather than a book by the great orator.

   There is a complete lack of continuity and cohesion throughout the book. Topics change from paragraph to paragraph. One gets confused if he is writing about himself, his life, the people he has known or his unpublished books. Any given paragraph may include some or all of these in a rather haphazard manner.

   In reading this, I especially hoped to sink my teeth into understanding more about Clarke, more about the Africana movement, more about the history of the African people. Instead, I got some anectdotal stories and superficial glimpses. There was no significant depth to the content of this book.

   In spite of my disappointment with "My Life in Search of Africa," it is an important book to read. History has typically been approached from a European (white) perspective, and it is essential that we get beyond that approach, that we learn more of the rest of the world, and that we learn from and about the people enabling that knowledge.

4 comments about Going Home to Teach.

1. If you live in the Caribbean you will be able to identify with all the occurrences. If you used to live in the Caribbean, this book will bring back all the memories. If you have no Caribbean connections, then you will be highly amused by the "peculiarites" of the natives as Mr. Winkler cleverly reveals the culture and personalities of the island



2. Just seeing his name on the book spine was enough to make me pick up the book.

   Over the years, Anthony C. Winkler's rollicking novels of Jamaican life have given me considerable pleasure and insight into Caribbean sensibility. He writes with a great affection for the island nation's people, reveling in their culture and contradictions, equally amused by and compassionate toward all the social strata. However, I'd been curious about the writer himself since first reading THE LUNATIC years ago, after a St. Kitts-born friend and mentor pressed the book into my hand with a smile, saying "You must read this!" The brief bio in his books mentioned he was a native Jamaican and scant else. Who was he? I wondered to myself about his background, his roots, his understanding of Jamaica.

   GOING HOME TO TEACH answered my questions and delivered a lot more. At heart, it's Winkler's memoir of his mid-1970s stint, when Michael Manley's "democratic socialist" administration ruled, as an instructor at a government-sponsored rural teacher training school. His return is part altruism, part nostalgia: As the author of successful, widely used college textbooks, he's got tidy sums squirreled away in American banks, so he can afford to return home and work for a pittance. On the other hand, at the time he's thirty-something, divorced, and he's spent thirteen years away from home to study and teach in the U.S., whose society bewilders him.

   The meat of the book, though, is both personal and general. Winkler is a raconteur, a griot--a natural born storyteller--and he regales you with stories about his family (particularly his eccentric grandparents and crazy aunts), his encounters with hidebound administrators and bureaucrats, striking students, madmen, and the impossibility of finding competent repairpersons. And then again, there are his observations on American society and culture, the contrasts with Jamaica, and the cultural idiosyncrasies that he attributes to the history of slavery and English colonial rule. GOING HOME TO TEACH is a dense stew of memorable people, incidents and conclusions, richly seasoned with rib-tickling anecdotes.

   Indeed, what makes the book really work is Winkler's humor and humanity, his conversational tone, his equanimity whether describing the absurd or the nearly tragic. He's not shy about his foibles, his family's or his countrymen's, and completely droll even when revealing the unpleasant side of paradise. Be cautioned about reading this book in public: you risk indelicate stares for laughing out loud, as I did particularly as I was reading his account of "night life"--the panoply of insects and other critters--in the Jamaican countryside.

   There's also the bittersweet. Winkler's ancestry is European and Middle Eastern--which adds up to "white"--but he's Jamaica-born and bred (patois is his "native tongue" much as any other Jamaican's), and that's the land he loves. It results in a certain "double consciousness," which I find ironically analogous to the lot of "Black Americans":

   "To be white in a black country with a long English colonial history is to be a pariah, an ambiguous entity. It is to be simultaneously respected and despised, to arouse suspicion and curiosity, to evoke defiance, rudeness, envy, and condescension. It is to be separated from that inalienable birthright every white American enjoys in his country: the expectation of being treated with indifference in a public place....

   "The hardest thing about growing up white in a black country is the nagging feeling of not belonging.... Jamaicans of all races who have lived abroad for any length of time also suffer it after returning home, but for the white Jamaican the feeling of not belonging is a cross he must bear even if he has never set foot out of his own country."

   If you're already a fan of Winkler's writing, I believe you'll also love this book. If you're not already acquainted, this should be a fine introduction to the man and the land. A highly recommended, rewarding read.




3. I was a schoolgirl in Jamaica, during the 70s, the period Mr. Winkler writes about and I can attest that all the things he says are true. The book is hilarious and poignant at the same time, capturing all the things that make Jamaica a difficult place to live in, yet an impossible one to stay away from. He captures the crazy drama of everyday life there, with humor and beauty and sadness. The scene in the patty shop when he asked by two people behind him in line to judge which is the blacker one, is one of the funniest things I've ever read.



4. Anthony Winkler is a really gifted author and he has a talent for clearly reproducing the essence of raw Jamaica, even if it is a Jamaica that existed before I was born. He also wrote "The Lunatic" which I need to find and re-read again as well. He is a white Jamaican who currently lives in Atlanta, GA.
   
   This book "Going Home To Teach" recounts his experiences when he returned home to Jamaica to teach back in the 1970s. Those were tumultuous times for Jamaica, when Michael Manley was in power and socialism was the philosophy du jour. Many people left, while Winkler was coming back. The book has a lot of pathos, humour, and drama; but what really makes it impressive and relevant to me are the observations on Jamaican, American and English culture. Here are some samples. I don't necessarily agree with all his observations, but I think they are worth noting.
   
   On being white in Jamaica, specifically referring to his American wife's experience:
   "To be white in a black country with a long English colonial history is to be a pariah, an ambiguous entity. It is to be simultaneously respected and despised, to arouse suspicion and curiosity, to evoke defiance, rudeness, envy and condescension. It is to be separated from that inalienable birthright every white American enjoys in his own country; the expectation of being treated with indifference in a public place. When you are white in a black land like Jamaica, you are no longer merely a man, or a woman, or a child. For good or ill, you are also immediately transmogrified into a living symbol of a detested colonial past."
   
   On Jamaican and American attitudes towards economic roles:
   "The American nation is essentially a confederation of economic tribes known as businesses and corporations, each with its own totemic history, identity...when you work for an American corporation it defines you, moulds you...and eventually changes your values and perceptions...Americans are reared with the expectation that a large part of their personal identity will eventually be defined in adulthood by an economic role. One becomes what one does...Jamaicans DO their careers, their occupational pursuits; Americans BECOME them...This wedding of personality and occupation is a most peculiar trait for Jamaicans to comprehend mainly because they have inherited from their own cultural experience a deep-seated dislike for ready-made economic roles. Jamaicans revel in the expression of an idiosyncratic self, and reject any occupational role that brings with it blanket expectations of the self. Why this is so no doubt goes back to our experience with slavery when we waged and endless war of passive resistance against the slave master's desires and struggled hard to repudiate what he wanted us to become."
   
   On "getting on bad"
   "This expression has a peculiar meaning to the Jamaican, and no known equivalent in America. To `go on bad' is to employ the behaviour of the lower class in a sphere of life where it is outlandishly inappropriate. One cannot `go on bad' in a true democracy like America, but only in a society that separates people into classes by a strictly prescribed code of manners. Under the Englishman's colonial blueprint, the ragged brute in the streets is expected to rant and rave over grievances and raise his voice in profanity, but not the tuxedoed gentleman at a formal dinner. And should the gentleman so behave for whatever reason other than rare excusable drunkenness, he is said to have `gone on bad.' His sin is not so much bad behaviour as it is a degenerate hybridisation of manners-bringing the lower-class brute into the drawing room- and the penalty is social expulsion. He simply will never be invited back."
   The unfortunate thing is that many times, getting on bad is the only way to get anything done! He notes this in the anecdote that follows this quote, which I won't replay here.
   
   It's a great autobiographical novel told from a point of view that I haven't even considered too much; that of the person who is born in Jamaica and is just as Jamaican as I am, except that he is white. It is an accurate snapshot of Jamaica in the 1970s as well. Well, I assume that, since I wasn't born then :D At any rate, I highly recommend it. Also read the rest of his books: "The Lunatic" "The Painted Canoe" "The Great Yacht Race" and "The Duppy". I have read them all except for the last one, those I have read have been very good also.

1 comments about Life's Philosophy: Reason and Feeling in a Deeper World.

1. A fairly dense book to read. The founder of the deep ecology movement puts forth his treatise on the importance of emotionality in everyday life and in forming one's belief system. Worth the time.

1 comments about Public Teaching: One Kid at a Time.

1. Mrs. Kittle is a teacher at my high school. I've never had her as a teacher but she always has a "Hi!" when you pass in the hall. I knew she was a great writer. (My essay writing teacher, Mr. Fayle, talks about her writing all the time) I just didn't know how good she really was. Until now...
   Her stories are filled with passion and advice for new teachers. I want to absorb every word she writes and use it to its fullest extent. I plan on becoming an elementary school teacher and wish I could carry Penny Kittle around in my pocket so I could pull her out whenever I have a question. Although, with this book, I can almost do that.
   Mostly written for teachers by a teacher, this book deserves ten stars and will inspire everyone that reads it to be an outstanding teacher.

5 comments about Caught in the Web of Words: James Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary.

1. I enjoyed this book for the most part. It really conveys the sense of martyrdom that Murray must have felt during the 30-some years that he worked on the Dictionary. After a while, however, it got a little old--chapter after chapter describing the horrible deprivation Murray suffered at the hands of the Delagacy of the Oxford University Press into which he was virtually forced.
   
   Whenever there were "good years" the book would read something like "...and then the Delagacy let up on the poor guy for a while, but then so-and-so was named the new Secretary and he turned out to be an idiot." Then the author (actually Murray's granddaughter) spends another chapter detailing how so-and-so made Murray's life a living hell.
   
   Like I said before, this gets to be tiring. It seems as if she has an axe to grind with the OUP after all these years and has made the main point of this book to be a crusade of some sort. She wants the world to know just how much pain and suffering dear old granddad went through. I couldn't help thinking that, in reality, he was just some kind of ultra-perfectionist nutcase and somewhat of a big crybaby.
   
   Other than that, I recommend the book as being informative and interesting.



2. Elizabeth Murray, the granddaughter of James Murray, who was the chief editor of the huge Oxford English Dictionary on which every serious scholar of English continues to depend, has written an excellent biography of the greatest English lexicographer, and done more: she has also given an insight into his personality, and, yet more importantly, into the whole scholarly world of philology, lexicography etc. in Victorian England, and the difficulties which beset the creators of the dictionary. I recommend the biography most highly, and feel that all fans of *The Surgeon of Crowthorne* (chiefly on Dr W.C. Minor) should read this - preferably BEFORE that book (so as to get a sense of context), but otherwise after. - Joost Daalder, Professor of English, Flinders University (see "More about me')



3. This is really two books in one: the life story of James Murray, first editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, and the tale of the dictionary itself. Both are lovingly told. It's a must read for anyone interested in dictionaries or linguistics.



4. Elisabeth Murray writes a wonderful and highly detailed biography of her grandfather, James Murray. Simon Winchester reintroduced many in this country to Mr. Murray in his book The Professor and the Madman, which told the story of Murray and an American living in an English asylum named W. C. Minor. This book was highly readable, but not comprehensive as a true biography of Murray.

   James Murray, the first editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, was a gentle man of words who dedicated his life to the study of the English Language. His efforts are best understood in this book by the descriptions Elisabeth gives of his scriptorum, where Murray spent the majority of his life, and where Elisabeth worked as a young lady.

   In reading about this man's life and the effort that was required to undertake the construction of this dictionary, one really gets a sense of the vastness and complexity of the English Language, the historical richness and the regional diversity. One also sees in florid detail the life of one of the great late-Victorian pedants.




5. James Murray was a prodigy. He learned languages, geography, botany at an early age. He lived in Scotland. He was intrigued that his border language was identical to that of Northumberland and so that the English-Scots boundary had no linguistic significance. He was always learning, always collecting knowledge.
   
   In two years at school he learned four languages. After school he was tutored in two more by a family friend, Italian and German. His family did not send him to grammar school at Melrose because there were other boys to educate. He became an assistant master when he was seventeen. By 1857 he was developing an interest in philology. Seeing Anglo-Saxon put him into a high state of excitement. He moved to London and started to work at Russian. He wrote THE DIALECT OF THE SOUTHERN COUNTIES OF SCOTLAND.
   
   James Murray was respected by Morris, Ellis, Sweat, Skeat--men instrumental in revolutionizing the science of etymology. In 1868 at the Philological Society Murray encountered Frederick Furnivall. Furnivall was an inveterate founder of organizations for the study of English. Murray became an editor of the dictionary project of the Philological Society after the first editor, Herbert Coleridge, died. Borrowing the method of work from the Germans, Coleridge had started in 1860 with fifty four pigeon-holes. James Murray was named editor in 1877.
   
   Ultimately there were sixteen thousand pages of the OED. Murray died in July 1915. The last portion of the dictionary appeared in 1928. Supplements to the dictionary were issued in 1933 and 1972. There are two appendices, notes, and an index in this very good book.