American Eagle Books

This one has everything you expect or want from Stony Man, and then some. The characterizations are not only spot on but allow each character to shine on their own. Their is action galore and it never lets up or drags. Highly recommended--especially the audio version from the cutting corporation!

I don't usually care for series like this. I'm career military and I can tell when the approach is faked or trumped up or exaggerated.

Doom Prophecy was more of a straight-up adventure novel, with surprisingly good characterization, particularly with the villians and great action scenes. The more s.f. elements fit very well and I could easily picture this book being the basis for a big-budget action movie.

I doubt I'll ever become a fan of this para-military kind of series, but the writer of this particular one made me interested in checking out more of his work, since it was so energetic.

"Polak to katolik" (A Pole is a Catholic) is a traditional aphorism, but in what sense is it true? This has never been an easy question in Polish history, esp. in the past when Poland was a much more ethnically heterogenous state. Neither was it an easy question for American Polonia, as the existence of the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America (PRCUA) and the Polish National Alliance (PNA) attest. But, as Dr. John Radzi³owski shows in this sympathetic yet professionally critical history of the 131-year old PRCUA, the PRCUA/PNA divide was more than "simply a matter of one group that stressed Catholicism pitted against another group that stressed a broader nationalism" (p. 87). To reduce the difference between the PRCUA and the PNA to a "Catholic-versus-secular division" (p. 89) is facile. To the degree that it presumes what Richard Neuhaus calls "the naked public square" of contemporary radical secularism, it is also anachronistic.

The PRCUA/PNA difference lay at the level of ideals, emerging

from a longstanding division in Polish attitudes that had emerged by the end of the eighteenth century. . . . The Alliance emerged out of Poland's nineteenth-century Romantic tradition. . . . Romantics saw Poland as the 'Christ among nations,' and its problems were the result of the evil actions of its autocratic neighbors. . . . . [T]he Union . . . . came out of Poland's Positivist tradition. . . . They believed Poland had lost its independence due to its own weakness, and its problems could be best solved by building up the nation's internal resources" (pp. 89, 90).

For the PNA, priority belonged to naród, "all Poles and persons of Polish descent residing anywhere in the world" (p. 89). For the PRCUA, priority belonged to okolica, the local environment and neighborhood. The nationalists wanted to build from the top down, instilling ethnic consciousness in peasants who, prior to their emigration, probably never traveled far from their villages. The PRCUA wanted to build from the bottom up, starting with vigorous local communities centered on local parishes (p. 90).

In PNA eyes, at least at the start, American Polonia was ephemeral: "once Poland regained its independence, most Polish immigrants would return home" (p. 90). PRCUA more quickly recognized that American Polonia was something here-to-stay, and was thus more readily invested in building it up. Paradoxically, the PNA was the greater proponent of naturalization and assimilation, convinced that American Polonia could leverage their U.S. ties to the advantage of the Polish cause. The PRCUA, more fearful that a secularist, materialist and consumerist culture could lead Polish Catholics astray, sought to forge a comfortable Polonian subculture that would keep those evils at bay. How many people know, for example, that the PRCUA launched its own colonization program? In seeking to keep Polish villagers down on the farm, it promoted settlement in Polonian communities formed in Nebraska in the 1870s. That effort was not marginal: its impact could be felt a century later. "In 1980, Sherman County, Nebraska, had the highest percentage of Polish Americans of any county in the United States" (p. 64).

"Organic work" was the credo of Polish Positivism and the motto of PRCUA. Building up families and communities were the PRCUA's goals. Radzi³owski discusses their varied contributions, from establishing a social safety net through insurance funds and death benefits for immigrants thrust into the cauldron of 19th century industrial America to camps and sports programs aimed at maintaining Polish cultural identity among youth to efforts to provide relief and reconstruction assistance to Poles and Poland following two world wars. Polish Americans played a key role in the struggle of America's labor unions, and PRCUA assisted its working class members both by demanding workplace social justice as well as providing assistance to strikers.

The changing demographics of Polonia, new patterns of immigration and the atomization of American life to the detriment of civil society and voluntary organizations all have their impact on PRCUA today. Radzi³owski is aware of the problems faced by Polish-American organizational life, but he keeps perspective while sounding an upbeat note:

. . . [E]arlier generations faced far greater problems with far smaller resources. The PRCUA, today an organization with close to $300 million in insurance . . . began as a loose collection of church societies with no central administration, no funds, no death benefits, no headquarters, no library, no museum, and only a semi-official newspaper. The Polonia of that time was universally poor, poorly educated, politically impotent, and oppressed. The Polish homeland was little more than a colony of foreign powers. A century and a quarter later, the picture is completely different, like night and day" (p. 313-14).

Amply illustrated and well documented, this book deserves to be on the bookshelves of all Polish-Americans. The photographs and cartoon sketches truly prove that "a picture is worth a thousand words." A special chapter is dedicated to the unappreciated "Smithsonian" of American Polonia, the Polish Museum of America. As always, Radzi³owski anchors the history of PRCUA against the larger backdrop of the histories of American Polonia, Poland, and America. Highly recommended.

This review appeared in no. 3 (2004) issue of Nihil Novi: The Bulletin of the Kosciuszko Chair in Polish Studies, the University of Virginia:

John Radzi³owski, The Eagle and the Cross: A History of the Polish Roman Catholic Union in America, 1873-2000 (Boulder, CO. and New York: East European Monographs and Columbia University Press, 2003).

For many years, the history of the Polish diaspora in America has been treated as a topic of minor importance. Polish scholars have tended to view immigrants as part of the history of other countries and no longer germane to the story of Poland. American scholars have also largely ignored Polonia, whether through unfamiliarity with the Polish language or ignorance.
Yet this immigration of millions of people from one country to the other had a major impact on both Poland and America. Millions left the Polish countryside during the crucial years of the late nineteenth century and significant numbers left after World War II and again in recent decades. But these immigrants did not merely affect Polish history by their absence. In America, many immigrants developed a heightened sense of Polishness. When Polish culture was restricted and even banned in the old country, many immigrants first heard Chopin, read Mickiewicz, or celebrated May 3rd in America. Many immigrants who came from impoverished rural areas were first exposed to the glories of Poland in Chicago, Buffalo, or Detroit rather than in Krakow, Warsaw, or Poznan.
In addition, Polish immigrants sent millions of dollars to rebuild Poland after both world wars. Tens of thousands joined a volunteer army during World War I to fight on behalf of Polish liberty. Having experienced democracy, freedom of speech, and the right to vote in America, immigrants transmitted those ideals back to their friends and family in their home villages through letters and visits. If today Poland is considered one of the most pro-American countries in Europe, this is a result of attitudes engendered by Polish immigrants.
In America, Poles shaped urban, industrial life. They were a driving force behind the development and expansion of major urban centers such as Chicago and Detroit. Poles played a crucial though often forgotten in role in America's first civil rights movement-the struggle for the rights of workers in the decades prior to World War II.
John Radzi³owski's book, The Eagle and the Cross, is an effort to shed light on this often-overlooked history by focusing on the history of the first significant Polish organization in the New World, the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America (PRCUA). The Union, a fraternal insurance society founded in 1873, was based on the ideals of Catholic positivism and was in harmony with the intellectual and cultural trends that were prominent in Poland at that time. Many of its founders had their roots in a rejection of Romanticism. Instead, they sought to build up Poland's moral, economic, educational, and cultural resources through "organic work."
These ideas were adapted to the needs of Polish immigrants in America by the priests and sisters of Congregation of the Resurrection, founded in Paris by Polish expatriates in the 1830s. The Resurrectionists were engaged in a vigorous counterattack against socialism, materialism, and modernism. Through the PRCUA, they sought to keep Polish immigrants faithful to the Catholic Church, true to their Polish heritage, and to avoid the temptations and perils of the new industrial cities. As Radzi³owski shows, by the 1920s the PRCUA developed a major and impressive range of activities that reached out to the Polish community in America but which also mobilized that community to aid the cause of Poland where needed.
The book breaks new ground in that it is the first English-language history of this important organization, which continues to play a key role in American Polonia to this day. Radzi³owski argues that in the past, scholars of Polonia have focused more attention on secular, radical, or dissenter organizations, often overlooking groups like the PRCUA and generally taking for granted the importance of Catholicism (in all its complexity) in shaping the character of the Polish diaspora. It chronicles the range and impact of PRCUA activities and shows how connected American Polonia has been to both American and Polish history over the last century and a half. Intriguingly, the book suggests, but does not fully develop, a connection between the ideals of late nineteenth and early twentieth century Polish positivism and the philosophical roots of Pope John Paul II.
The Eagle and the Cross fills an important gap in our knowledge about Polish and American history and challenges scholars to rethink the role of the millions of people who helped build two nations.

The author, Richard Collier, has chosen the six weeks period from August 6 to September 15, 1940 for an account of the Battle of Britain "daylight air battles that were fought over the English Channel and across southern Britain; a short period that may have determined the western world fate." This is the story of the pilots, aircrews, support personnel, and commanders of the RAF and Luftwaffe who fought for air supremacy while Germany was preparing to invade Britain.

First hand and eyewitness accounts supported by official documents provide the details for the text, which is fast-moving and very readable. The narrative moves chronologically from mid-August 1940 through the September 15. The Luftwaffe initially launched devastating attacks against British radar sites and RAF stations such as Biggin Hill and Manston with the intent to either destroy the RAF on the ground or in the air as RAF fighters defended the stations. This tactic created a serious problem for RAF Fighter Command as limited aircraft and pilots had to be dispersed to defend multiple locations. RAF pilots were under great stress as "The mounting losses now decreed that a pilot's expectation of life was no more than eighty-seven flying hours." "One moment the pilots were sprawled on the dusty grass at dispersal, swapping stories, the next they were staring unbelieving at scores of German planes flying in perfect stepped-up formation." By September pilot wastage was approaching 120 men a week and aircraft losses exceeded production.

Lacking is the usual Hollywood approach to air combat that opens with "There I was at 20,000 feet when I spotted the enemy." Instead Colliers presents first hand and eyewitness accounts of the air battles, which are well presented and informative. For example, the author writes, "Then, in his last moment, feral instinct once more saved Red Tobin's life. In the second of closing in, something prompted him to make one last check, swinging the Spitfire violently to port, and as he swung back on the last weave of all he saw, almost dead astern, three yellow-nosed Messerschmitt 109s." Humor is also included in the text: at Homefield, Kent the butler "did the rounds of the velvety lawn after each dog-fight, sweeping up spent machine-gun bullets as deftly as ever he brushed crumbs from a damask table cloth." In another case when a RAF pilot made a wheels-up crash landing near an Elizabethan garden, "a country gentlemen of the old school stepped courteously forward to greet him" with a glass of brandy for his unexpected guest.

The text outlines critical command problems. The British commander Air Vice-Marshall Sir Hugh Dowding lacked trained pilots despite a two-week crash course for replacement pilots as losses outstripped the training unit's yield. From 1438 men available, by September 3 pilot strength had slumped to 840, "a casualty rate which assured the Germans victory in just three weeks." When Germany shifted to massive bomber raids to force the RAF into a fight to extinction, Fighter Command could concentrate fighter defense in larger groups; however, Dowding still faced a shortage of pilots and aircraft.

In Germany Reichsmarschall Hermann Goring lacked Dowding's empathy for his aircrews. To the German pilots it seemed that the pressure was stepping up almost hourly and Major Adolf Galland (later Germany's leading fighter ace) stated, "Things can't go on much longer like this. You can count on your fingers when your turn will come." Goring insisted on using the ME 110, which was ineffective as a bomber escort; but rejected arguments to increase production of the badly needed Messerschmitt 109 fighter. He further foolishly stated at the battle's midpoint that the RAF was down to just fifty Spitfires.

The book closes with an excellent outline of the critical air battle that took place on September 15, which the author calls the "greatest air battle of all time" On September 15, high above the German bombers, the leader of the Luftwaffe fighter escort sardonically broke radio silence with: "Here come those last fifty Spitfires." The RAF entered the battle with no reserves. While Dowding was still 170 pilots under strength, the author notes that at "this eleventh hour a fierce elation had seized every man airborne. "Few pilots notched top scores; it was teamwork from first to last" and so numerous were the crippled bombers pilots couldn't miss.

A downed German fighter pilot paid tribute to the RAF stating to his escorting guard "Well done, Spitfire." After the critical air battles of the past six weeks, by September 17, Hitler decided to postpone invading Britain indefinitely and give full priority to invading Russian. Ahead for the RAF lay long nights of bombing while the day battle was all but over. The brave efforts of "the Few" may well have determined the outcome of WWII in the west.

The book ends with a brief section of Facts About the Battle of Britain.

Overall it is well written account of a critical event in World War II.

Superb account of the battle from initial stages through the height and climax of the battle, I loved the countless anecdotes, some funny, some sad, some grim, some victory, some defeat, some life, some death, one German fighter pilot in deep trouble in his twin-engined Messerschmitt belly-lands at an English farm, but ploughs into the farmhouse killing most of the family, including children, the pilot is in tears and inconsolable, and comforted by surrounding residents who race to the scene.

At an RAF fighter-field, a Dornier bomber bellies in shot-up by British fighters, grinds to a metallic halt. An RAF ground officer cautious but intrigued approaches the eerily still wreck, looks up to find himself staring from metres away at the wrong end of one of the bombers machine-guns in the cockpit, and a German rear-gunners face squinting through the cross-hairs gunsight at him. The RAF man freezes, believing this is his final moment, but nothing happens- the gunner has been hit and killed instantly during the fight above, and is still manning his gun defending his aircraft, frozen in his final living pose.
A Polish RAF pilot shoots down another Dornier bomber filled with the hated Nazi occupiers and torturers of his homeland, follows it closely as it makes a skilful crash landing, and sees survivors inside the bomber scrambling to exit and safety. The Polish pilot sees no reason there should be any escape from his victim, and puts a long carefully-aimed burst into the wrecked bombers cockpit- there will be no live Luftwaffe prisoners for the Home Guard and British Army to round up this time.
Another German bomber ploughs in stricken elsewhere and its men receives different treatment from the defenders- RAF pilots and ground-crew leap from cover on the still under-attack airfield and prize their way into the aircraft to rescue the trapped German airmen inside struggling to escape the burning wreck- at this moment, with these men they have minutes ago fought and tried to kill, there are no Germans, no British, no enemies, just fellow pilots and the universal horror of airmen trapped burning in aeroplanes.
An Me109 with with Luftwaffe 'Experten' aboard comes upon a frantically-climbing Hurricane squadron from the 5## Auxiliary Air Force units, unaware of the Germans presence, the Hurricanes climb serenely in line astern, the German begins with the rearmost man, picks off 4 of the Hurricanes and sends them flaming, while the rest of the squadron continue climbing oblivious to the rape of the squadron behind them.....

New Zealand RAF legend and daredevil Al Deere's Spitfire is bombed by a Stuka while taking off,the Spitfire flips upside down, fuselage snapped in two, Deere dangles inverted from his straps, unable to free himself, almost unharmed but soaked in spurting gasoline from the Spitfires ruptured full tanks, as fires begin to crackle in the shocked amputated Spitfires wreck.
If you only buy one book of the many on the legendary Battle of Britain, you could do much worse than choose this one, or the more technical and analytical but splendid 'Fighter' by Len Deighton.

Dr. Thompson is spot on, and our country has been an imperial power for decades. We have, again and again, ignored the advice of George Washington and involved ourselves in other nation's affairs. We are, no matter what we want to admit, the new global power. despite Bush's attempts,and must behave accordingly. Dr. Thompson, pHd. Michigan, has provided a thoughtful look at our imperial heritage and a look at where, as a nation, we are headed.

Although Americans tend to not see the American Empire, its reality and pervasiveness becomes clear once the problem is seen in a different way. This book provides that perspective via an account of the way the United States created its Empire by taking over the British. In fact, the process is clearly underway from the time of Theodore Roosevelt, but the significant transition occurs in the period of the two world wars.Vivid and anectodal, moving fast from seleced key incidents, this history is invaluable for showing how, as it were, the American version of imperialism come into being without the explict trappings of Britain's overseas colonialism.

This is like "Flags of Our Fathers" goes airborne. It's all about the author's quest to understand his father's wartime experience, which here involved not raising a flag on Iwo Jima, but serving in the 95th and 49th Aero Squadrons and flying Nieuports and Spads against Germany's best.

The cultural context is intriguing here, because the war that Woolley Senior knew was fought by rich people, upperclass scions like Sumner Sewell or Quentin Roosevelt, Andover preppies who volunteered for aviation and thereby went on a sort of outward bound-like adventure in the clouds. Mr. Woolley captures this romance well and shows his winning affection for his father through this detailed, intimate storytelling. I was very taken with this reach back through the generations.

This book is for anyone who's interested in either WWI fliers, or where our current generation of pilots gets their heritage (nice drawing of an F-15 Eagle on the cover is a signal that the publisher thinks that's part of the market for the book----they're probably right).

A great read -- recommended highly.

I wasn't sure about reading this book--too often books about ancestors focus too much on the family, too little on the historical events with which the family was involved. But this one is a pleasant surprise. Only one short chapter about family background, then much information from interviews with men the elder Woolley served with, but not focused on him in particular. It's informative and interesting and personable. I found new insights into the state of mind of men facing death daily, often before ever encountering the enemy, thanks to unreliable aircraft. I felt almost as though I were talking to some of those veterans myself, which is high praise for the writing style.
One quibble. On page 253, Amelia Earhart is said to be "originally from the Boston area." She may have been from Boston later in life, but originally, she was a Kansas girl!

The old saying, "Thar's gold in them thar hills" is one most North Americans would quickly associate with the California Gold Rush of 1849. Or even with the modern-day quest for fame and fortune in today's Hollywood. However, as George A. Montgomery illustrates in THE EYE OF THE EAGLE, the first major gold rush was not a California thing at all but an event that took place some twenty years before the move west and that was centered around Auraria, Georgia, arguably not the most famous tiny place in the world. Appropriately enough, many of those elements which have made the celebrated western saga so compelling and endurable are just as prevalent, if not more so, in its southern counterpart. Conflicts between would-be settlers and Native Americans, the adventurous quest for wealth, and the rugged existence that was life in 1828 all make for a captivating read. And while there is no dearth of information on such indigenous Georgia tribes as the Creek and Cherokee, Montgomery's novel shed a very telling light on the roll gold played in the forced removal of these groups from the state during that campaign referred to rather poetically as "The Trail of Tears." Novels like this not only entertain and inform but make a real difference in our understanding of the history already behind us and the history currently unfolding.
Aberjhani
author of THE WISDOM OF W. E. B. DU BOIS
and ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE

Anyone who has ever caught a glimpse of a shiny fleck of gold in rich black sand knows how gold fever can drive a man to spend hours to weeks panning for gold in the hopes of striking it rich. George Montgomery writes of such a fever and the effects it has on the lives of the people in the northern Georgia town. The Eye of the Eagle is a fast paced entertaining novel as well as a historical account of the effect the gold rush had on the Cherokee tribe. It leaves you wondering if the tale is true, and if there may in fact be an eye of the eagle somewhere in the Georgia hills

I am pleased to have this book to add to my Native American History collection.

This is the finest book I have read on the lifestyle of the Lakota (Sioux),people not only before European contact, but also how they dealt with their transformation into "civilized" members of the dominate society. It was originally written in 1933. Luther Standing Bear took his name after entering Carlisle Indian School. How sad that the newcomers to North America didn't take the time to learn the culture of the original inhabitants of this land. We would all be better off today if they had. This book gives much insight into why. Even at this late date, there is a lot that can be learned from "Native Wisdom." I highly suggest that anyone interested, read this book. It will touch your heart!

Native American spirituality what is all about? You can find irrefragable answer to this question in this book.
I also recommend it for those who are interested in the Teachings of Don Juan Matus from the books of Carlos Castaneda.

This book is a wonderful incursion into the teachings of the Native Americain full of wisdom and wonderful stories.

The leader of the U.S. trained and equipped National Guard Anastasio Somoza Garcia seized power in Nicaragua in 1936. He was an S.O.B., but he was our S.O.B. as Franklin Roosevelt immortally said privately in 1939 when Somoza visited him in Washington D.C. Somoza wanted the National Guard officers and enlisted men to enrich themselves in mafia-style rackets such as prostitution, according to Walker, so they would be dependent on him for their self-enrichment and would thus constitute a force immune from popular discontent. Somoza Garcia's son Luis succeeded him after his assassination in 1956. Luis set up a lot of bureaucracies supposedly devoted to social services and economic planning, but these were in reality mainly used as a vehicle to funnel U.S. aid money to the Somoza family and its cronies. Walker cites the particularly blatant case of how the government used U.S. aid money after an earthquake in December 1972 completely destroyed Managua.

Anastasio Somoza Debayle Jr. took over as president from his brother in 1967. Anastasio Jr. reinstated a "state of siege" and sent the National Guard into the Countryside, where the (FSLN) Sandinistas were involved in stimulating peasant activism, after a December 1974 successful hostage taking operation by the Sandinistas. The Guard proceeded to rape and kill and pillage thousands. Many American Catholic clerical and lay workers witnessed these actions and the U.S. congress was moved to hold hearings.

In 1977, President Carter suspended military aid to Somoza in order to force him to relax somewhat his censorship of the press, thinking that the U.S. could afford for Somoza to do so without the status quo in Nicaragua being disrupted. However, in early 1978, after increasing massacres of civilians in the tens of thousands by the National Guard Carter resumed economic and military aid to Somoza. The uprising had begun in early 1978 after the assassination of newspaper editor Pedro Joaquin Chamarro. The Carter administration, in conjunction with the Organization of American States, eventually tried to enforce its policy of "Somocismo sin Somoza"....

Walker describes how the Carter administration refused to send arms to the Sandinistas and looked the other way as the military oligarchy in Honduras allowed remnants of the National Guard, helped by trainers from the Argentine neonazi military regime, to organize the force which would become the Contras. ....

The Reaganites refused to sell arms to the Sandinistas, cut off all aid, and successfully pressured the French to end an arms deal with the Sandinistas in 1981. Increasingly, the Sandinistas were forced to rely on Soviet block arms. Walker notes that the rifles, AK-47's and tanks that the Nicaraguans received from the Soviet block were small in number and often old and decrepit. Clearly the Sandinistas were seeking military aid from the Soviet Block because the Reaganites had launched a full scale proxy terrorist war against them. The Contras deliberately attacked civilian infrastructure and murdered teachers, doctors and engineers. The attacks on oil storage and port facilities by the Contras in 1983 and 84' caused Venezuela and Mexico to suspend oil shipments--Nicaragua was then forced to turn to the Soviet block for its petroleum needs. The FSLN managed to maintain fairly extensive economic and political relations with Western Europe and capitalist countries in the third world but the U.S. media preferred to ignore this.

In the early 80's, Walker notes the Sandinistas achieved some remarkable successes. Nicaragua's infant mortality rate was reduced from 121 per 1000 in 1978 to 90 per 1000 in 1983. The Kissinger Commission report of 1984 blamed the Sandinistas because it said that Nicaragua's GDP was reduced by 38 percent from 1977 to 1983. This was deceptive, Walker notes, because that statistic had in it the last two and a half years of the rule of Somoza when the country was largely destroyed. In the years 1980-83, Walker notes, the Nicaraguan economy actually grew by an average of 7 percent, while the rest of Central America's economies declined by 14 percent.

In spite of some mild repression (not comparable to U.S. backed terror in Guatemala and El Salvador) in response to the country being under U.S. backed terrorist attack, reactionary newspapers like La Prensa were allowed to violently attack the government and receive funding from the CIA. The CIA instigated protests by the Nicaraguan opposition which attempted to provoke the Sandinistas into repressive actions, Walker quotes House Speaker Jim Wright revealing in January 1988. Meanwhile, in U.S. client states Guatemala and El Salvador newspaper offices were being blown up by the military backed death squads, and newspaper editors were left disemboweled by the side of the road. In 1984, the Sandinistas had an election which was judged free and fair by a wide variety observer delegations, including from the British parliament and House of Lords, Danish and Irish Parliaments, etc. Disruption of opposition rallies by Sandinista "turbas" only occurred about 5 times out of 250 instances according to election analysts. Walker quotes a statistic to the effect that 46 of the 48 top Contra officers had been officers in Somoza's National Guard--I think he got this from Edgar Chamarro, the former Contra spokesman.

The U.S. escalated its economic strangulation and terror attacks on Nicaragua and the latter was eventually forced to devote the majority of its budget to defense. In 1990, the Sandinistas held an election, as the 1987 constitution had mandated them to do and the Nicaraguan electorate, under the threat of continued U.S. funding of Contra terrorists if the Sandinistas won, voted in the UNO. The U.S. had achieved its goal of restoring the old Somoza era social order within Nicaragua. Walker gives an extensive discussion of the post-1990 social order. Nicaragua ranked 61st on the UN Human Development Index in 1990; it ranked 116th by 2000.
Walker gives an instructive look at how the miserable rural proletariat of Nicaragua was created by the late 19th century.

This is written in a remarkably even-handed register when you consider the outrageous (imperial?) actions of the US over the years, regarding Nicaragua. I also found the explanation of dependent economies (where most of the effort goes into goods for export rather than goods for the common good!) very enlightening. It challenged my basic beliefs of what government does and should do for, with, and by its citizenry. If you want a concise history of Nicaragua that includes treatment of all the factions involved over the years, this is it! The author has appended an extensive bibliography of English-language sources and additional reading materials that appears very thorough and helpful to going deeper into this country.

Brought the 60s back to me. Vendor did excellent job. Honest appraisal of the book's condition. Shipped right away.

I heard about Jon Daniels for the first time recently on NPR and was immediately interested. As a cradle Episcopalian and the mother of a bi-racial daughter, I wanted to know more about him. I found this book and was profoundly moved by his faith and call to Alabama. This book told me more about the Episcopal church's involvement in the civil rights movement than I had ever known before. I shall now remember him every August 14th, the day of his arrest and when he is remembered by the Episcopal Church is Lesser Feast and Fasts.