 . . . Summer 2000
 |
|
Suggested Reading: Books by U-M faculty and graduates, and works published by the University of Michigan Press. Michigan Today cannot review or acknowledge all books received. |
 WHEN THE EARTH EXPLODES
By Buck Dawson '43, '48, Nova Science, Commack, NY, 1998, hardcover $23.95.
Amateur volcanologist Dawson (See "The Adventures of Buck Dawson" by Linda Walker, Fall 1996 MT), argues that volcanoes cause 95 percent of global air pollution, El Nino, the hole in the ozone and Bermuda Triangle disappearances. In the book's historical, less controversial section he pieces together eyewitness and other accounts of the six most significant eruptions in history, from Vesuvius in 79 AD to Katmai, Alaska, in 1912. Other topics include Mt. St. Helens, Atlantis, dinosaurs, the parting of the Red Sea and others. Ancient people worshipped volcanoes, Dawson says, because it was volcanoes "that giveth and taketh away."—JW.
 THE FAILED PROMISE OF THE AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL 1890-1995
By David Angus and Jeffrey Mirel, Teachers College Press, NYC, paper $26.95.
When American educators introduced "democracy's high school" in the 1920s, they based the concept on two key points: students would be assigned to courses that reflect their perceived ability; but most high school students were incapable of and had no need for serious academic study. "Rather than furthering equality," write Angus, the late U-M School of Education professor of educational history and policy, and Mirel of Emory University, "these ideas spurred the creation of high schools in which students followed increasingly separate and substantially unequal educational programs. Few ideas have been more destructive to equal educational opportunity or to democratic education. [O]nly a small percentage of students [were provided] the opportunity to master the knowledge and skills that might lead to power and success in American society."
By the 1930s, students were sorted along class, racial and gender lines. Educators also introduced intelligence testing as a means by which to offer a scientific rationale for the differentiation of students. Students of supposedly low ability were offered watered-down courses. "By the middle of the 20th century, education aimed at the lowest common denominator had become the norm in America's high schools." The authors propose reform measures, including raising teacher standards and graduation requirements, and introducing national standards in all academic subjects at all levels.—Amelyn Reyes.
  TO BE A KID
By Maya K. Ajmera and John D. Ivanko '88 BBA, Charlesbridge, Watertown, MA, 1999, hardcover $15.95.
An international photo gallery of children from every continent, To Be Kid is ideal for youngsters and those who read to youngsters to acquaint them with their young neighbors around the globe. A celebration of childhood in full color, with more than 60 photos.—JW.
 THE KINGSLEY HOUSE
By Arliss Ryan '71, St. Martin's Press, NYC, paper $25.95.
The House that Nathan Kingsley built in Livonia, Michigan, in the 1840s was home to his descendants for more than 100 years. Alumna Ryan, his great-great-great granddaughter, was drawn to the history of her family because they represented "ordinary people who built America with their own hands," she told MT. Relying on documentary evidence when she could, Ryan imagines her way through the generations, recounting the brutal taking of an escaped slave the family had sheltered, the deadly sweep of a diphtheria epidemic and a scoundrel's schemes to bilk his wife out of her property. By the end of this beautifully written and absorbing novel, the reader is glad to know that the real Kingsley house has been preserved and restored and now stands in Livonia's historic village at Greenmead where it is open to the public.—Linda Robinson Walker.
 BY WONDERS AND BY WAR
By Carol Williams '46 MA, Chicago Swiss American Historical Society, 1999, paper $19.95.
Scholars are finding that the everyday lives of people in out-of-the-way places can tell us more about what it was like to live during world-historic events than do the main stage deeds that textbooks record. Novelists, as Williams shows in her tremendous tale of Swiss immigrants in South Carolina during the American Revolution, have always known this. What residents of Bosnia or the Congo experience today, American communities experienced in equal measures of chaos, bloodshed and tragedy in the partisan conflicts of South Carolina and other hotspots. Williams accomplishes her goal of awakening us to larger areas of our heritage than we were likely to know about before.—JW.
 THE JOURNEY
Stories by K.C. Das, translated by Phyllis Granoff, published by the U-M Centers for South and Southeast Asian Studies, 2000, 158 pages.
Kishori Charan Das is one of the most celebrated writers in India today.
He writes primarily in Oriya, the language of his native state of
Orissa. The nine stories in this collection take place in a modern urban
setting, and most of the characters are middle class, which makes them
more easily accessible to a North American reader than other examples of
contemporary Indian fiction. But these are by no means simple stories.
As the translator says in her introduction, these are "stories about
divides,' about gaps between realities and imagination." In complex
shifts between direct dialogue, interior monologue and imagined
dialogue, Das exposes his characters' thoughts, their self-deceptions
and the games they play with each other. The stories explore a range of
human emotions and motivations in all their conflicting untidiness.
There are few neat resolutions and no simple answers. The truths of
these stories are gray.—Bonnie Brereton.
This Issue's Index
|
This Issue's Front Page
|
CURRENT Michigan Today
|