Book Review

Immigration in Nebraska

Book Review: "The Green Boat: Reviving Ourselves in Our Capsized Culture" by Mary Pipher

Review by John Atkeison

“The Green Boat: Reviving Ourselves in Our Capsized Culture”
Author: Mary Pipher
Publisher: Riverhead Books

Many people avoid even thinking about things they believe that they cannot control: “Why get all stressed out about it if I can’t do anything about it?”

If that’s you, then Mary Pipher wrote you a book!

And most people naturally avoid pain, even pain that leads to something good. Like going to the dentist, which can prevent a lot of pain and loss of teeth. But even people who can afford to go sometimes delay a visit or avoid it altogether. She wrote the same book for you all, too.

Book Review: "The Myth of the Muslim Tide: Do Immigrants Threaten the West?" by Doug Sanders

Review by Gene Bedient

“The Myth of the Muslim Tide: Do Immigrants Threaten the West?”
Author: Doug Sanders
Publisher: Random House

Rational: Based on or in accordance with reason or logic. Reasonable, sensible, sane, logical.

“All in the Family”: In this 1970s television series, a working-class bigot argues with his family members over issues of the day. It was wildly popular. A certain reality was revealed to me one day as I was discussing the series with one of my dear colleagues at work. While not arguing for one point of view or another, my friend told me what he didn’t like about the show. Namely that the viewers tend to side with one camp or the other because their own prejudices have already been established. The show did little to persuade viewers that their perspective should change. He was right.

For those who have already made up their minds that Muslim immigrants are taking over Western culture and civilization, this important work of Doug Saunders will have no meaning. For the reader who would like to consult a well-written, well-documented, impartial source on the subject, this book is for you.

Book Reviews: "Wings over the Great Plains: Bird Migrations in the Central Flyway" and "Nebraska's Wetlands: Their Wildlife and Ecology" by Paul A. Johnsgard

Review by Jon Farrar

“Wings over the Great Plains: Bird Migrations in the Central Flyway”
Paul A. Johnsgards
Publisher: Zea Books

“Nebraska’s Wetlands: Their Wildlife and Ecology”
Paul A. Johnsgard
Publisher: Conservation and Survey Division, School of Natural Resources, Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Paul Johnsgard—Foundation Professor of Biological Sciences Emeritus, University of Nebraska-Lincoln—produces books so prolifically you wonder if it’s time for his elves to unionize and demand shorter workweeks and vacations. Two new books were published late in 2012. They are especially good companions for birders whose interests lean toward wetland species. But those with more diverse tastes will not be left unsatisfied.

Book Review: "Artifacts and Illuminations: Critical Essays on Loren Eisley" edited and with an introduction by Tom Lynch and Susan N. Maher

Review by Christine C. Pappas

“Artifacts and Illuminations: Critical Essays on Loren Eiseley”
Edited and with an introduction by Tom Lynch and Susan N. Maher
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press

Who was Loren Eiseley? He was a mental time traveler, a scientific shaman who wrote in essays and poems. In his personal and professional life he lived between worlds: human or animal; artist or scientist? The essays in the volume “Artifacts and Illuminations: Critical Essays on Loren Eiseley” (edited by Tom Lynch and Susan N. Maher and published by the University of Nebraska Press) finally may provide basic insight into Eiseley that will allow his readers to break the code that has been surrounding his works for 40 years. Lynch is an associate professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Maher is the dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. The University of Nebraska Press has been instrumental in keeping Eiseley’s books in print and offering them with new intro- ductions. Hopefully this new volume will spur more Eiseley scholarship on the themes they begin to develop.

Book Review: "The Right Frequency: The Story of the Talk Radio Giants Who Shook Up the Political and Media Establishment" by Fred V. Lucas

Review by Randall Moody

“The Right Frequency: The Story of the Talk Radio Giants Who Shook Up the Political and Media Establishment”
Author: Fred V. Lucas
Publisher: History Publishing Company

I hope he fails” were the words of Rush Limbaugh, the noisiest and best known of the right-wing radio talkers, when Barack Obama was elected president in 2008. Arguably, it was Limbaugh who ensured President Obama’s re-election victory in 2012 with his nasty attack on a Georgetown University law student, Sandra Fluke, when she called out the university for not including contraceptive coverage in its student insurance policy. Reproductive rights became a major issue in the presidential campaign, and Obama won the vote of single women by a whopping 36 percent over the Republican candidate Mitt Romney.

Book Review: "Backstage: Stories from My Life In Public Television" by Ron Hull

Review by Jack L. Kennedy

“Backstage: Stories from My Life in Public Television”
Author: Ron Hull
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press

They say you can’t tell a book, or a person, by the cover.

“Backstage” by Ron Hull, with Hull on the front cover in an interviewer’s chair, is subtitled “Stories from My Life in Public Television.” This perhaps pedantic premise might lead the casual book surveyor to think that he or she is due for a nostalgic, regional, ego-driven celebrity hunt. There are some of those elements, smartly presented. But do not be myopic. Prepare to be surprised by the book’s scope and feeling, far-ranging geography and perspective.

Book Review:"What the Hoops Junkie Saw: Poems, Stories, and Reflections on the Passing Scene" By John Walker

Review by P. Scott Stanfield

“What the Hoops Junkie Saw: Poems, Stories, and Reflections on the Passing Scene”
Author: John Walker
Publisher: Prairie Dog Books

John Walker is a familiar name to Midwestern folk music aficionados; he has been playing clubs, coffeehouses and house concerts on the folk circuit up, down and across the Great Plains for decades now, and represented Nebraska in a celebration of regional music at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Walker usually performs as “Doctor John Walker,” and unlike, say, Dr. John the Night-Tripper or Professor Longhair, he can document his credentials. He holds a Ph.D. from Brown University and taught philosophy at Nebraska Wesleyan University for 33 years. (Full disclosure: for 13 of those years, I was one of his humanities division colleagues and his occasional sideman, on bass.)

Book Review: "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" by Seth Grahame-Smith

Review by Kimberly Downing Robinson

“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”
Author: Seth Grahame-Smith
Publisher: Grand Central

Some people, Abraham, are just too interesting to kill.”

Grahame-Smith’s handling of Civil War history is remarkably well contextualized in “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.” Indeed, much should be expected from a novelist who thinks himself well advised to use Abraham Lincoln as a protagonist in a novel about vampires, especially when the backdrop of the story runs the gamut of the historical events that shaped Westward expansion and bipartisan politics. “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” probes American cultural and historical insecurities through an uneasy transformation of the historical novel, a genre developed by Sir Walter Scott to provide cultural commentary on behalf of the disenfranchised and to promote social activism for the reinstatement of Scottish values and traditions, some 60 years after the Battle of Culloden (1746).

Book Review: Exploring the Fiction of Patricia McCormick, the Crusading Journalist and Writer for Young Adults

By Lopamudra Banerjee

There is probably a dim spot in all of our memories when we come to think of the Cambodian war of the 1970s that destabilized the country with an extremist communist regime.” Patricia McCormick, the National Book Award finalist, addressed this to her audience at the Criss Library, University of Nebraska at Omaha, at an intimate reading session of her latest novel, “Never Fall Down.” In the city to talk about the haunting, hopeful piece of fiction that largely draws on the life of Arn Chorn Pond, the brave, spirited survivor of the late ’70s Cambodian Revolution, she also provides some vivid accounts of the atrocities, the tragic separation of children and families trapped by the tyranny of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. In the same breath, she talks about the protagonist Arn, the courageous survivor whom she met through a neighbor in New York, and reads sections of the book that gradually traces his quest to find ultimate redemption from the gruesome torture he was subject to.

Book Review: "Wetland Birds of the Central Plains: South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas" by Paul A. Johnsgard

Review by Jon Farrar

“Wetland Birds of the Central Plains: South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas”
Author: Paul A. Johnsgard
Publisher: Zea E-Books

I was fortunate enough to have had Paul Johnsgard as an instructor for three courses at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. That was a long time ago, the late 1960s. Oddly enough, even though I had grown up only five miles from prairie chicken booming grounds, and only 40 miles from where sandhill cranes paused on the Platte River each spring, I first saw displaying grouse and sandhill cranes on field trips in Johnsgard’s ornithology class. I have most of his books but have passed on several, only because I was not particularly interested in birds such as “Trogons and Quetzals of the World.”

Book Review: “Free God Now!: How to Liberate Yourself from Old Time Religion & Just Maybe Save the World” by Clay Farris Naff

Review by Mary Jane Humphrey

“Free God Now!: How to Liberate Yourself from Old Time Religion & Just Maybe Save the World”
Author: Clay Farris Naff
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services

Clay Farris Naff, a Lincoln, Neb.-based science writer, has taken on a biggie in his recently released e-book, “Free God Now,” available through Amazon.com and slated for an eventual hard-print edition. Naff, who writes for “Scientific American,” “Earth,” and “The Humanist,” among other publications, is out to do nothing less than rescue humanity. Subtitled “How to Liberate Yourself From Old Time Religion & Just Maybe Save the World,” Naff’s book focuses on the nexus between science and religion, though his attention in this book clearly tilts toward religion. His premise is simply that “old time religion” has got to go—or our world will go up in flames.

Book Review: “The Short American Century: A Postmortem,” edited by Andrew Bacevich

Review by Francis Moul

“The Short American Century: A Postmortem”
Editor: Andrew Bacevich
Publisher: Havard University Press

Most Americans would agree that the 20th Century was an American triumph, the “American Century” where we won two world wars, beat a depression and led the world economically, politically and socially. Well, as in Porgy and Bess: “It ain’t necessarily so.”

Henry Luce, publisher of “Life” magazine, defined the century’s past and promise in a pivotal essay, printed in the magazine on Feb. 17, 1941. This was a time when Great Britain was alone in resisting the Nazi Germany war machine, and Luce wrote that it was time to answer the call of history with a “complete opportunity of leadership” worldwide by aiding Britain.

A new world was coming, “one world, fundamentally indivisible,” and the United States, “the inheritors of all the great principles of Western civilization,” was uniquely positioned to determine the character of that world, Luce noted. American might become “the Good Samaritan of the entire world.”

Book Review: "Field Guide to Wildflowers of Nebraska and the Great Plains, Second Edition" by Jon Farrar

Review by Chris Helzer

“Field Guide to Wildflowers of Nebraska and the Great Plains, Second Edition”
Author: Jon Farrar
Publisher: University of Iowa Press

If you happen to own a copy of Jon Farrar’s “Field Guide to Wildflowers of Nebraska and the Great Plains” from 20 years ago, you’re a lucky person. Only 10,000 copies were printed, and all were sold within about a year and a half of publication. Since that time, anyone not fortunate enough to get in on the original windfall has had to beg, borrow or steal copies from others.

Book Reviews: An Economics Triptych: Three Current Books Relevant to Current Economic Discussions

Reviews by Jerry Petr

"Keynes Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics"
Author: Nicholas Wapshott
Publisher: Norton

"Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius"
Author: Sylvia Nasar
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

"23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism"
Author: Ha-Joon Chang
Publisher: Bloomsbury Press

Book Review: "Growing with Nature: Supporting Whole-Child Learning in Outdoor Classrooms"

Review by Woodrow Nelson

“Growing with Nature: Supporting Whole-Child Learning in Outdoor Classrooms”
Publisher: Arbor Day Foundation and Dimensions Educational Research Foundation

Much has been said about the problems of children’s disconnection from nature and its consequences.

New terms have been invented—“nature deficit disorder” and “biophobia,” the fear or aversion of nature.

Children engage in creative play less and less. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that American children spend roughly six hours per day plugged in electronically. Time outdoors has declined dramatically. “Free-range” time in nature has virtually disappeared.

Book Review: "The Big Empty: The Great Plains in the Twentieth Century" by R. Douglas Hurt

Review by Jon Lauck

“The Big Empty: The Great Plains in the Twentieth Century”
Author: R. Douglas Hurt
Publisher: University of Arizona Press

On the bright blue afternoon of Sept. 23, 2011, at a hotel along the banks of the Minnesota River in the Blue Earth County, Minn. city of Mankato, historians interested in the prairie and Plains gathered to talk about the history of our region. The occasion was the annual meeting of the Northern Great Plains History Conference, a long-standing institution essential to the dissemination of the latest research and historical thinking about our region.

Book Review: "Let's Be Reasonable" by Joel Sartore

Review by Tyler Sutton

“Let’s Be Reasonable”
Author: Joel Sartore
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press

Joel Sartore’s latest book, “Let’s Be Reasonable,” is a clever collection of essays he wrote mainly for the television show “CBS Sunday Morning,” is illustrated with his photographs, many of which were taken while on assignment for National Geographic Magazine over a 20-year career.

Book Review: "A Harvest of Words: Contemporary South Dakota Poetry" edited by Patrick Hicks

Review by Patricia H. Scudder

“A Harvest of Words: Contemporary South Dakota Poetry”
Editor: Patrick Hicks
Publisher: The Center for Western Studies

Whoever selected the title for this book of poetry has witnessed staggered lines of combines marching resolutely down fields of South Dakota wheat. Harvest, indeed, is as iconic an image for South Dakota as is Mount Rushmore. Whether there is such a thing as “South Dakota poetry,” though, is as difficult to determine as whether there is such a thing as “New Jersey poetry,” especially if you believe that the poet expresses the human condition. For me, that belief universalizes poetry rather than limiting it to a specific region, for human beings are found everywhere, even in New Jersey.

Book Review: "Sandhill and Whooping Cranes: Ancient Voices over America's Wetlands" by Paul A. Johnsgard

Review by Michael Forsberg

“Sandhill and Whooping Cranes: Ancient Voices over America's Wetlands”
Author: Paul A. Johnsgard
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press

In 1991 Paul Johnsgard authored Crane Music: A Natural History of American Cranes. The book told the stories of North America’s two crane species—the sandhill crane and the critically endangered whooping crane, and underscored the importance of Nebraska’s Platte River Valley, a critical sliver of habitat these species depend on during their annual migratory journeys. The book became a classic and sits on our bookshelf today at home alongside the other Johnsgard books that have become dog-eared and coffee-stained over the years with repeated use.

Book Review: "Rare" by Joel Sartore

Review by John Janovy Jr.

“Rare: Portraits of America's Endangered Species”
Author: Joel Sartore
Publisher: Focal Point/National Geographic

Joel Sartore’s “Rare” is as rare as his subjects: lichens, snail, birds, cats, flowers, fish and assorted other creatures seemingly destined to depart Planet Earth forever, not as individuals but as kinds. Nebraskans, especially, have come to admire Sartore as a combination storyteller, artist, crusader and guide to natural areas the vast majority of us will never see, much less crawl about in up to our eyeballs staring at wild things through a lens. We locals have been amazed at his touch of wonder and humility on stage, his ability to turn images into extended narratives and his constant focus on mission—to make us aware not only of our place in nature but also how we are messing things up to our long-term detriment. With “Rare,” he brings all of these Sartore qualities to us in book form. And what a book it is.

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