Local Government in Early America: The Colonial Experience and Lessons from the Founders

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Local Government in Early America is a concise and thought-provoking exploration of the American desire for political participation, most notably in the 'town hall meeting.' A product of early New England democracy, this form of direct local participation remains one of the most celebrated, yet feared, institutions in our political life. Depending upon one's political perspective on the issue at hand, a lively town hall meeting can be the glorious epitome of grassroots activism or the wretched embodiment of reactionary zeal. For all of the media attention devoted to the conservative revolt against health care reform at town hall meetings across the country, the political right is late to game on local activism. From resolutions opposed to the Patriot Act or the declaration of nuclear free zones in cities, the political left has used the rhetorical power of the local political pulpit to great effect for many years. All of this is possible because of the manner in which local governments were constructed during the colonial period. Author Brian Janiskee details the origins of our local system by examining key characteristics of local colonial political life, including what key founders like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had to say about the role of our villages, towns, and cities in our complex system of government. Through this timely analysis of our political heritage, Janiskee may cause observers to reevaluate the phrase 'all politics is local.' Indeed it may be the case that 'all local politics is national.'

Local Government in Early America: The Colonial Experience and Lessons from the Founders Review

Janiskee's work, which I had the opportunity of reading as it was being reviewed for publication, represents a dramatic departure from the study of local government generally. Drawing on an array of American founding literature, Janiskee synthesizes their thoughts on the purpose of local government, a topic generally ignored in the study of these sources. Preserving self-government is the great theme. We today need to keep these grand national themes in mind when we study and practice local government. The break in these themes is most vivid in the 17th amendment, which broke the tie between voting for a state representative and the election of a senator. Before the 17th local government was tied constitutionally to the national government. We today need to restore the tie in other ways. Janiskee's work provokes that and other discussions.

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Logic And Declarative Language

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Logic has acquired a reputation for difficulty, perhaps because many of the approaches adopted have been more suitable for mathematicians than computer scientists. This book shows that the subject is not inherently difficult and that the connections between logic and declarative language are straightforward. Many exercises have been included in the hope that these will lead to a much greater confidence in manual proofs, therefore leading to a greater confidence in automated proofs.

Logic And Declarative Language Review

I have been very pleased with this book because it is so much clearer than other books in the same area. In effect it provides a "general theory" of computer languages, connecting all the different topics through logic. I was particularly pleased with the explanations of modern type theory and its relationship to object-oriented and polymorphic programming.

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Lytton Strachey and the Search for Modern Sexual Identity: The Last Eminent Victorian (Haworth Gay & Lesbian Studies)

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Examine Lytton Strachey’s struggle to create a new homosexual identity and voice through his life and work!</br></br>This study of Lytton Strachey, one of the neglected voices of early twentieth-century England, uses his life and work to re-evaluate early British modernism and the relationship between Strachey� s sexual rebellion and literature.</br>A perfect ancillary textbook for courses in history, literature, and women s studies, Lytton Strachey and the Search for Modern Sexual Identity: The Last Eminent Victorian contributes to the expanding field of queer studies from an historian’s perspective. It looks at homosexuality through the eyes of Lytton Strachey as opposed to the too-often analyzed Oscar Wilde and E.M. Forster. Questioning the idea that homosexuality is a � transgressive rebellion,� as Strachey as well as scholars on Bloomsbury have insisted, this volume focuses on the ongoing conflict between Strachey � s Victorian notions of class, gender, and race, and his desire to be modern.</br></br>Linking Strachey �s life and work to the larger movement of English modernism, Lytton Strachey and the Search for Modern Sexual Identity examines:

• Strachey � s role at Cambridge before World War I
• how he created his version of homosexuality out of the Victorian tradition of male romantic friendship
• his relations with the British Empire as he constructed a rich fantasy life that rested on racial and class differences
• his friendships and rivalries with the women of Bloomsbury
• how Strachey’s use of sexuality, androgyny, and history defined (and undermined) his brand of modernismThis thoughtfully indexed, well-referenced volume looks at Strachey� s life, in the words of author Julie Anne Taddeo, � �to illustrate some of the issues concerning his generation of Cambridge and Bloomsbury colleagues and how they battled the Victorian ideology, often without success.� It is an essential read for everyone interested in this fascinating chapter in literary (and queer) history.

Lytton Strachey and the Search for Modern Sexual Identity: The Last Eminent Victorian (Haworth Gay & Lesbian Studies) Review

I had never really known much about Lytton Strachey before reading Taddeo's book. I ordered this on a whim and loved it---I've just ordered Strachey's Eminent Victorians after reading this. Taddeo writes really well---the book moves quickly and I was fascinated by Taddeo's analysis and discussion of Strachey's sexuality. What I liked most about this book (and I can't say this enough!) was its readability. This is a book for scholars and non-specialists. If you've read any of the books by the Bloomsbury group or if you love the Victorians, buy this book (actually you should buy it and read it no matter what!). Help other customers find the most helpful reviews Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Report abuse | PermalinkComment�Comment

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Making Men: Rugby and Masculine Identity (Sport in the Global Society)

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This text looks at how an understanding of rugby can provide insight into what it has meant to "be a man" in societies influenced by the ideals of Victorian upper and middle classes. It shows that rugby has been a means of promoting male exclusivity, but also been a means of cultural incorporation.

Making Men: Rugby and Masculine Identity (Sport in the Global Society) Review

Prospective readers take heed: this is not a book about the glories of rugby union football. It's not about epic battles, soaring victories and crushing defeats, the heroes and the zeroes. This is not a book about sport; it is penetrating social science in the context of sport. This is a serious scholarly work, complete with compulsory academic-speak like "hegemony" and "pedagogy," even "bourgeoisie," and really deep academic-speak laden passages such as, "...the racial and patriarchal ideology of residual Celtic supremacy." If you're looking for a light diversion about playing rugby, this most certainly is not it. If you're a hunchbacked tight-five scrummie who's best when rucking and raking in the mud and the blood, this is not your kind of book.

But, if you're a rugby enthusiast and/or player with intellectual thinking a bit more expansive than the pitch and the pub, looking for a truly fascinating series of well researched and easy to follow studies of how your sport has influenced much larger social, societal, cultural, and national issues, then you'll most likely enjoy this.

Despite the title, this book isn't a gender studies examination of masculine identity within the context of Rugby Union Football (rugby). If you're anticipating a forced collection of touchy-feely work on masculine identity and other squishy gender issues in the context of rugby, this book will disappoint. There is one article which is mainly devoted to the book's inaccurate sub-title, Nauright's quasi-concluding article prior to the formal conclusion, in which he explores some aspects of gender identity and labeling. The rest of the book does take on issues of masculinity and its public perception and development in the context of rugby, but these discussions take place almost exclusively to set the stage for the much larger and arguably more interesting issues. Sure, there are passing references to the male culture of rugby, almost all of them negative, highlighting gender exclusivity, drinking, brawling, and what is portrayed unfairly as sexist ritual and institutional misogyny. Reading these passages, I wonder if any of the authors actually have ever played the sport.

The discussion of male identity takes place always in the context of how this was a precursor and then concurrent aspect of the building of larger national identity. There are many, eventually repetitive references to what would become an English vision of modern (read "Industrial Revolution") manliness: rural, strong, fit, and more than anything willing to engage in activities of explicit physical risk. The discussions of male-ness in this book center on an Industrial Revolution intelligentsia worried that factory work and the tyranny of technology would rob the English Man of his stamina, his connection to the land, of his vigor and his strength, his ability to withstand physical and spiritual hardship, and ultimately the Empire. The discussion is very much rural-vs.-urban, but is also economic and social, landed-vs.-dispossessed and gentry-vs.-peasant. Into this surprisingly strong and strident public discussion arrives rugby, a sport accessible at first to only some, and eventually to all, in which the ideals of English masculinity could be first regained, then strengthened, and then showcased, first domestically then internationally.

This leads to the real core of this book, which I found much more interesting than the predictable gender positions within rugby. It is the surprisingly influential and arguably pivotal role rugby played in the development and growth of national identity and then nationalism in England and Wales (by implication, Ireland and Scotland), and in the colonies of South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia. In a nutshell: rugby emerged as a class-restrictive sport, which rapidly became a location of class-transcending social mixing. As coalescing Industrial Revolution economic classes bonded over a common love, so was born mutual dependence, respect, and the basis for a larger understanding of common cause and purpose. So was born pride and societal/cultural definition, from which nationalism rapidly grew: ". . . the `mateship' associated with rugby served to transcend class boundaries and weld men together under a canopy of common masculinity."

There are 12 articles across 244 pages. The articles are arranged in a basic chronological order, starting with the opener discussing rugby in British public schools in the 1830s on, up to the final chronological article on the role of rugby in South Africa in the latter half of the 20th century.

For someone looking for some great quotes on maleness and rugby, the unique attributes of the sport, this book is a trove: rugby as "...physical combat without (having to resort) to uncontrolled violence;" the rugby player as "warrior-philosopher;" rugby as a display of "healthy animalism," and; the rugby pitch as "...a testing ground-a place where manliness was learned, character developed and manhood discovered." There are hundreds more to choose from.

The scholarly citation is quite good throughout, with ample opportunities to examine sources and seek out additional reading. I think it was a poor editorial decision, however, to use chapter end notes rather than traditional footnotes, as the moving back and forth to the end of the chapter interrupted the flow of my reading. The book is scholarly, after all, let the footnotes fall where they should. There is a surprisingly comprehensive index, another solid aid for the researcher and student.

Bottom line: If you're looking for a straightforward history of rugby, tales of storied matches, ancient rivalries, and wins/losses, this book isn't for you. If you are a serious gender studies student or reader, this book will deliver somewhat on the book's subtitled promise of masculine identity examination, largely confirming all of the worst rugby stereotypes. But, if you're a sports-minded intellectual accustomed to serious academic writing and with the basic background in current political science, economics, history, and the world system, looking for something interesting that ties all of them together convincingly, then this book will be as revealing and pleasurably surprising for you as it was for me.

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Making Tobacco Bright: Creating an American Commodity, 1617-1937 (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology)

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In her sweeping history of the American tobacco industry,Barbara Hahn traces the emergence of the tobacco plant ��s many varietaltypes, arguing that they are products not of nature but of economicrelations and continued and intense market regulation. Hahn focuses her study on the most popular of these varieties, BrightFlue-Cured Tobacco. First grown in the inland Piedmont along theVirginia� �North Carolina border, Bright Tobacco now grows all over theworld, primarily because of its unique—and easilyreplicated �cultivation and curing methods. Hahn traces theevolution of technologies in a variety of regulatory and culturalenvironments to reconstruct how Bright Tobacco became, and remains tothis day, a leading commodity in the global tobacco industry. This study asks not what effect tobacco had on the world market, buthow that market shaped tobacco into types that served specific purposesand became distinguishable from one another more by technologies ofproduction than genetics. In so doing, it explores the intersection ofcrossbreeding, tobacco-raising technology, changing popular demand,attempts at regulation, and sheer marketing ingenuity during the heydayof the American tobacco industry. Combining economic theory with the history of technology, MakingTobacco Bright revises several narratives in American history, fromcolonial staple-crop agriculture to the origins of the tobacco industryto the rise of identity politics in the twentieth century.

Making Tobacco Bright: Creating an American Commodity, 1617-1937 (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology) Review

This contemporary addition to the history of tobacco in America is a welcome analysis of the relatively sparse, primary source material. The author guides us along the succession of labor institutions--from colonial to modern times--that appear to have determined the chosen agricultural practices in different tobacco growing regions of the United States. Her strength lies in associating evolving market trends and technological innovation with the immutable congealing of defined tobacco types, and the presumed "right" way to grow, harvest, cure and sell tobacco destined for domestic and world markets as they existed in the late nineteenth century.

As serious history (indeed, an expansion of her PhD thesis), the book is reasonably readable. During the period covered, the cultivation of tobacco was so ubiquitous that it was seldom documented in detail satisfactory to the uses of an historian. The author squeezes a vivid picture from the data and vague references in personal and commercial correspondence that do exist.

Any reader who has puzzled over the origin and criteria of USDA-defined tobacco classes (flue-cured, burley, Maryland, air-cured, dark fire/air, cigar wrapper, cigar binder, cigar filler, Oriental, primitive), or the much more numerous tobacco types (with their associated numbers and geographic designations), will find some clarity here. These designations carry an air of authority and biologic reality, which, as the author correctly concludes, is simply a picture of the state of the market and technology near the turn of the twentieth century.

There are problems with the book. While I can forgive an historian or economist for misapprehending the underlying science, I have to assume that the author, as well as her doctoral thesis advisors, failed to get the science right in this academic publication.

"...the yellowish-greenish hornworm, four inches long at the smallest (but sometimes as big as a man's arm), plump and nasty..."

The typography shows these words as the author's, rather than as a quote from a hyperbolic planter. Manduca sexta, the tobacco hornworm moth, can reach an adult size comparable to that of a hummingbird, but its caterpillar (the hornworm) starts off at a tiny 1/4 inch in length, and may reach a maximum length of 4 inches in its final instar, rather than becoming the author's arm-size behemoth. I'll ascribe this to editorial error.

Part of the difficulty is the author's conflation of varieties (cultivars) of Nicotiana tabacum with the somewhat arbitrary USDA types--often using the confusing term "varietal type," and in doing so, states explicitly (and incorrectly) that different varieties of tobacco are not determined by varietal genetics, but by cultivation and production choices. This would imply that one could start with seed of a cigar variety (cultivar), and by handling it as though it were a flue-cure variety, end up with a bright-cured Virginia. Her most emphatic genetic reference (Garner) is about 90 years old (scarcely a decade after the rediscovery of the work of Gregor Mendel). She endorses the odd notion that all tobacco plants are pretty much the same, and that the final product is entirely in the hands of those humans who select growing methods and processing techniques.

If one simply plants numerous different varieties (cultivars)--say, 40 different ones--during the same growing season, in adjacent beds, the phenotypic differences, even between closely related varieties, are obvious, even to inexperienced eyes. Grown under identical conditions, the plants are quite distinct. Analyses of their constituent alkaloid mix, and other analytics repeatedly demonstrate unique differences. These differences do, of course, contribute to their choices for various specific uses, hence the association between genetics and market classes.

While all varieties (cultivars) can be air-cured and aged to yield excellent, distinctive tobaccos, only some varieties possess a chemical composition within the leaf lamina to produce satisfactory flue-cured tobacco. Flue-curing a burley or cigar variety results in "dead," flavorless leaf, lacking the bright color, sweetness and lower pH typical of flue-cured Virginia varieties. Some Orientals, though not all, can be nicely flue-cured.

I commend the author for adding an appendix on the genetics of tobacco. Unfortunately, it reads more like the diatribes of climate science deniers and creationists, picking emotive commentary and quoting valid findings out of context. She just doesn't "get" the science. All of the assertions that tobacco varietals, when grown in a new geographic area "break type" after just a few growing seasons are derived from observations of the nineteenth century or earlier--a time when the need for insect barriers on the bud heads was not understood; a time before any understanding of genetics; a time before it was recognized that separation of different varieties by as much as a half-mile might still result in insect-borne cross-pollination of tobacco. ARS-GRIN (the database of the US tobacco germplasm collection) lists well over 2000 varieties (cultivars) collected over the past century, and which are used by researchers world-wide. There is no mention of this in the book.

The author can validly argue that Perique tobacco--the product of a unique pressure-curing technique--can be produced from practically any variety (cultivar) of tobacco. For Perique, the method does determine the product. This is true only because the pressure fermentation brings about changes that mostly overwhelm any nuance of leaf variety. Perique is a product, rather than a variety (although a named "Perique" variety does exist, though its provenance is unclear).

My overall assessment is that the book is worth reading for its treatment of how historical labor practices, markets and technology influence our perception of what is "natural" and what is "correct" in the production of an agricultural item, and how governmental intervention can freeze definitions that were once useful. So long as the reader understands that her frequent use of tobacco "variety" is confused, and that her underlying premise that plant genetics play little if any role in the final product is just plain wrong, there is much of value to be found here.

I feel the rating should be about 3-1/2 stars. As the only review so far, I'll round it up.

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