5 comments about Taught by America: A Story of Struggle and Hope in Compton.

1. First Yale, then a little Peace Corps work in the jungles of America, and back to school. She left Compton in 1995 and has been in graduate school ever since. This emphasis on "White" troubles me. I doubt that the TFA teachers' problems stem from their being white. The biggest gap I ever witnessed between a teacher and her students was between a haughty middle-class black woman and her ill-behaved charges. She wasn't a guilt-ridden white, full of caring, but a proud black woman who was righteously appalled that the ghetto kids were being enabled by a slack administration looking to make excuses for the lazy kids. The White Ivy League snots who work in the ghetto were never in the school; they were visitors, giving teaching a shot. Why in the world would parents send their kids to Yale to see them become teachers? You can get a teaching credential at the local state college. No. TFA is designed to add sainthood to one's resume, so one will forever be described not only as sexy, rich and smart, but also as caring, compassionate and, above all else, not racist. This is the only reason mom and dad, after paying $40,000 per year for four years, would tolerate seeing their child waste two or three years fooling around with blacks and browns in America's urban jungles. M & D can dine out with stories from their son or daughter's acts of heroism for years and years. Ms Sentilles doesn't let a day go by, I'm sure, that she doesn't tell someone about her work in Compton, a town amusingly described as poor (think Biafra) when in fact the houses there, on palm tree-lined streets, sell for $400,000. The kids come to school with their pockets filled with pickles, potato chips, and candy because they won't eat the "cafeteria food" which they consider too "nasty" for their delicate palates. Each and every one a Zsa Zsa Gabor, the kids have never done a chore in their lives. Their parents demand to see a counselor of their child's race, insisting that one of another race would be prejudiced. Hence, the "understaffed" schools, according to Ms Sentilles, in fact, have entire offices filled with bi-lingual aides, counselors, vice-principals, coordinators, and translators. The kids are trained in this system of victim-hood and privilege, so they stay home in droves on rainy days so as not to get wet, demand to see their counselor when told to turn off their phones, and walk out of the classroom when refused. I worked in LAUSD for over ten years. The sad tale of desperate kids trying to make do in under-funded schools is an insult to the California tax-payers who are taxed to death to pay for well-staffed schools, with huge federal bonus funds which are squandered on text book orders made at mid-year and end-of-year due to damage and waste. Where I taught, kids would throw so much food away, on to the floor, mind you, that staff used snow shovels to scoop up the waste. This on a daily basis. Feeling sorry for these lower-middle-class "poor" is itself an industry, one which the author exploits, despite her sincerity and integrity.



2. I enjoyed this book. The author is very realistic and authentic in her discussions. I found it to be very thought-provoking.



3. This is a beginning teacher in the "Teach for America" program that starts her career in the Compton, CA area better known as the Watts area in LA. Since I have been a teacher for 36 years and live in LA, I relate to this book and her many disappointments and joys. Read it--you'll love it, especially if you are or have been a teacher.



4. We used this book for a women's book club study. It was very interesting and yet startling information. well written and a good read for anyone.



5. The book is excellent and appears to be new and arrived promptly

No comments about Educating Darfur Refugees: A Jesuit's Efforts in Chad.

3 comments about Joseph Campbell: A Fire in the Mind.

1. The fire in Joseph Campbell's mind burned through the dross of a mundane existence and forged a character who was ultimately "transparent to transcendence" (his own remarkable phrase).

   The book is dense at times because of the Larsens' careful documentation and because Campbell's very life was so dense with accomplishment and discovery. I found the Larsens' scholarship to be impeccable and the coverage of a remarkable life thorough. Because they were friends of the Campbells, an air of authenticiy is added to their work. My only disappointment was their lack of reporting of his deeper response to his illness and impending death. I feel more information in this delicate area would have been appropriate because of the biographical nature of the work and because of Campbell's own personal spiritual belief system.

   I highly recommend this volume to anyone who wishes to learn more about one of the most formidable intellectuals of the 20th century. Because the book is so well-written, entertaining, and well-documented, it will enliven the days of your reading...and well beyond!




2. Since Joseph Campell was such a prolific writer of journals, letters, essays and books, this book was able to capture, in such detail, not only his life events but also the evolution of his studies and thoughts about myth, art, religion and the world. I originally checked this book out at the library but I am buying it as a reference guide because it touches on so many fascinating points about religion and the most prominent spiritual leaders in the last century.



3. After viewing his lectures on video and watching the interviews with Bill Moyers I became increasing curious about Joseph Campbell, the man, not just the scholar and how one could devote his life to his work.

   This authorized biography does not disappoint. It is a wealth of information from personal journals, letters, interviews with friends and family, most generously provided by his widow, Jean Erdman Campbell.

   Yes, it is a lengthy tome since it is chronicaling the life and works of one of this centuries most prolific writers and original thinkers, well worth the time it's taken to read it.

   Joseph Campbell, the eldest of three, had progressive parents who recognized their childrens natural talents and provided the best education to ameliorate their gifts. As I read, I was impressed how from a young age, Joseph Campbell viewed his world and continued to pursue answers to questions, and in turn, enlighten others through his lectures and writings.

   His relationship with friends, colleagues, mentors and his wife is tightly woven into this biography, he was grateful for all the support he received from his "fans." I was constantly surprised with whom he met along his life's path, John Steinbeck, Carl G. Jung to name a few.

   I am now embarking on reading Jung, influenced by Joseph Campbells admiration of his works and contributions to the study of the psyche. Hoping to open a new way of thinking myself.

5 comments about Richard Hofstadter: An Intellectual Biography.

1. 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.



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



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. 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



5. 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.

5 comments about The Road to Home: My Life and Times.

1. Vartan Gregorian has written a thoroughly fascinating book about his remarkable life and accomplishments. In this day and age a great deal of attention is paid to the "common man", as it well should be. But we tend to overlook the fact that it is the uncommon man that leads the way to advances in our culture. Vartan Gregorian is an compelling example of the remarkable talent nature only rarely incorporates into a human body, enabling startling results to be achieved.
   
   From an unremarkable -- indeed, unpromising -- beginning, the child Vartan depended not on his family but on his grandmother and interested strangers to encourage his budding talents. His Armenian ancestors had fled to Iran from persecution and death in Turkey. His mother died when he was a young boy and his father and his stepmother were not close to him. But through a variety of fortuitous interventions he found his way from Iran to Stanford, where he earned his first academic degree.
   
   At Stanford he married a remarkable woman who evidently shared his ability to adjust to new and challenging conditions. She had her first baby in Iran as Gregorian traveled in Afghanistan on a research grant. Then Gregorian began a dizzying ascent of academic activity that took him first to San Francisco State College, then to the University of Texas, and ultimately to the University of Pennsylvania where he became provost. His descriptions of academic politics -- the confoundedly complex interactions of presidents, deans, chancellors, and trustees -- are as fascinating as they are gut-twisting.
   
   It was Gregorian's next move that put him on the public radar. He reluctantly became the head of New York City's Public Library. It was a decaying empire, having reached its peak in earlier decades but now floundering with insufficient scholastic vision and financial support. Gregorian proved to be just the man with the unusual abilities to turn things gloriously around. His vast scholarly knowledge, his enthusiasm and energy, his sense of humor, and his charisma brought in tens of millions of dollars from wealthy donors who were grateful that they had a cause to believe in, as well as a man in whom they could put their trust to use their money in a constructive way.
   
   Gregorian's accomplishments continued unabated as he then moved into the presidency of Brown University, ultimately becoming the head of the Carnegie Foundation.
   
   Here is a man of energy ("I was born energetic"), of vision, of knowledge, of acumen, of character, of superlative accomplishment. Here is a man to admire, to be inspired by. Here is the uncommon man who boosts culture upward.



2. Although Dr. Gregorian was a poor Armenian boy from Tabriz, Iran, he had a rich cultural heritage. Influential hometown people, who seemed captivated by his charm and intellectual brilliance, helped him, not only just to survive, but to get a good education, leading him, by way of Beirut, to the U.S. and Stanford University where, after graduating in only 2-1/2 years (while also learning English), he got a PhD in humanities and history. His teaching career began at San Francisco State College, where, 41 years ago, I had the privilege of being one of his students in modern European history. This was during the years of the student uprising that occurred during 1966 to 1968 at S.F. State. Since Dr. Gregorian is a historian, this memoir is made all the more richer by historical commentary that Dr. Gregorian provides vis-à-vis autobiographical events. His teaching career moves from S.F. State (where he took a year off to go to Afghanistan to study and write a classic book on Afghanistan) to the University of Texas at Austin, then to the University of Pennsylvania where he became Provost. This story makes the trials, tribulations and infighting that go on in universities actually interesting. When Dr. Gregorian took over the presidency of the New York Public Library in 1981, it was suffering from extreme neglect due to New York's financial crises in the late 1970's when NYC was on the edge of bankruptcy. Besides his talent for creative administration, his personal virtues attract the rich and famous (i.e., Brooke Astor, Barbara Walters) to help him achieve his financial objectives for restoring the library. He turned the New York Public Library from a dissipated, physically crumbling institution back to a vibrant educational center in New York City. If you live in New York City, you might have noticed the regeneration of Bryant Park; he was also mostly responsible for that. Following nine years as President of Brown University, Dr. Gregorian became President of the Carneige Corporation, where he is today. For American autobiographies, I can't recommend this book highly enough.



3. Education, street smart (partially due to his street friends of youth), networking ability, social skills, socializing selectively among the most influential, are contributors to this author's achievements in life thus far.
   
   It would be worth while for Mr. Gregorian to use his skills and experiences in helping today's independent Armenia.



4. Vartan Gregorian's autobiographic tract, "A Road to Home," tells an extraordinary story. It is the quintessential American Success Story. Here is an Armenian immigrant who comes from a village in Northern Iran, with his high school education completed in Jemaran, the Armenian School of considerable note in Beirut, who earns a BA and a PhD from Stanford (in history, specialty: Afghanistan), teaches at San Francisco State and UT, Austin, ends up being Dean, Provost and almost the President of U. Penn., rescues and forges the renaissance of the New York City public library system from imminent disaster by taking over as president for eight years, becomes the president of Brown University for the next nine years and along the way, turns down the Chancellorship of UC Berkeley, the Presidency of Columbia Univ., Univ. of Miami, Univ. of Michigan, Univ. of Rochester and many others, before becoming president of the Carnegie Corporation.
   
   That pinnacle of academic positions of leadership, the presidency of a university, is not a chance given to very many people. That privilege of being the visionary leader of an institution of higher learning (as well as its chief fund raiser) is reserved to the best of the best and Vartan Gregorian has been one of the most sought after candidates for that post over the last twenty years being on almost everyone's short list! To say that he went from humble beginnings to the very top of the intellectual and academic life in America is to considerably understate the miracles that have paved the way of this deserving and gifted man's life journey. The perilous road that has lead him to the zenith of what America has to offer a scholar is depicted with great humility and panache in the pages of "The Road to Home," a Simon and Schuster 2003 publication. Everyone interested in how fate outstrips logic and predictability ought to read this book. Here is the chronicle of how the brilliance of a kid is first noted and appreciated enough somehow (by a French consular Attache' who happens to be Armenian) and then rewarded and protected by a long chain of benefactors and friends in the middle East (mostly Armenians) and in America (Armenians and many more non Armenians) both, catapulting a strange boy in great need for love and acceptance to shine as an intellectual and scholar, to conquer the toughest of tasks as an administrator, mediator, moderator, visionary, fund raiser, diplomat, keeper of the faith, lighter of the torch of knowledge and learning in Philadelphia, in New York City, in Providence, Rhode Island and in New York City again where, since 1997, he has been the president of the Carnegie Corporation which is a philanthropic organization of great weight and import in the cultural life of America and indeed the world. There are many immigrant stories that make America's spinning roulette wheel of success seem impossible to believe. Here is another such spectacular tale told by the master communicator himself, the staunch believer in education, the power of books, the beauty of scholarship and a man who has found his niche in high society and academe in America against impossible odds.
   
   Imagine a young boy in Tabriz, Iran, born in 1934 to Armenian parents in this Northern Province of Persia known as Azerbaijan. His mother, Shoushig, dies when he is six and a half years old. Together with his little sister Ojik, he is raised by their maternal grandmother, Voski Mirzaian. Her's is the strongest and most lasting influence on this poor boy's life. She is mother and father and grandmother to them since their father is never around, working elsewhere, such as near oil fields, to make ends meet, and is never a warm father anyway, even when he is around. In fact, he is a strange, cold, distant, remarried man who never encourages little Vartanig, never teaches him anything (even though he gives private English lessons to others), never gives him any sort of advice or love of any sort! These circumstances alone ought to be enough to scar a man for life and make it hard for him to have sufficient self-confidence to make it in this cruel world. Add to that the changing of hands of their province between Persia and Soviet Russia, the Second World War, depravity, being part of a Christian Minority in an overwhelmingly Muslim city and country, poverty, lack of food, clothing, proper shelter, constant peril and it is a miracle indeed that this boy grew up to amount to anything at all. The details of these harrowing times are depicted with great care and meticulous detail in the first fifth of the book, The Road to Home. Here we have the familiar positive influence of the Armenian Church, becoming an acolyte and developing a very warm relationship with the steady, ancient tradition of the liturgy and faith that is the hallmark of the Armenian Apostolic tradition. The solace Vartanig derives from these experiences acts as a counterweight to the lack of love and nourishment at home under his father's roof with his younger wife who cares very little for him or his sister. Vartan has his grandmother who teaches him wisdom, myth, faith, morality, history and traditional Armenian tall tails all brewed in one living magic cauldron. Stars and winds and ghosts and other mythological figures intermingle and fire up this precocious boy's imagination as a steady nightly diet administered by his grandmother and her tender loving care. It is remarkable how much of this he reproduces more than fifty years later in the pages of his autobiography. His is a genuine and profound love for his grandmother. Plus, he is far too intelligent not to absorb all he can learn from her about life and this world naturally. Vartan grows and observes the changing world around him. Soviet communists come and go, muslem extremism is always suspected to be a palpable threat to the Armenians and to all Christian boys and girls in particular. Pedophiliacs must be avoided and are rumored to be all around. Street fights with Muslim boys are routine. Vartan reaches his teen years, attending school with worn out shoes, without money to buy books but able to read everything written in Armenian he can get his hands on at the library of the Armenian church and community center. He then starts to write for the Armenian newspaper "Alik" as well about daily affairs and even deliver eulogies at the funeral of important Armenian citizens of Tabriz. From these surroundings, he is somehow able to extricate himself at the age of fifteen at the bold suggestion of the French Vice-consul, Edgar Maloyan, who instructs him he go to Beirut and attend high school at Jemaran. The first turning point or plot point of this story is his grandmother authorizing his departure knowing that it is best for him and his future to leave their village and embrace the larger world. The crown jewel of Armenian schools in Beirut in the fifties with an emphasis on French (and Arabic) instruction and a thorough Armenian education including classical Armenian and Armenian history and culture beyond a normal high school degree was Nshan Palanjian Jemaran. But such a school was simply unreachable for a poor boy from Tabriz whose father would not be of any help and who spoke no Arabic or French to begin with! But he did manage to go to Beirut on his own with just $50 to his name, find people to sponsor him, to take him under their wings, nurture him, find money for him, donate food, arrange make shift dwelling at some sort of "Hotel Luxe" until boarding school facilities were inaugurated a few years hence, and even teach him French on the side so that he could catch up and graduate a few years behind schedule but brilliantly. This unlikely passage to Beirut and an institution of higher learning, makes Vartan think of the words of Graham Greene who once said and he quotes: " There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in." That was Vartan's moment.
   
   It is at Jemaran that his knack for being noticed, appreciated, aided and nurtured takes root in earnest. In Beirut, in the early and middle nineteen fifties, around the intellectual community of Jemaran, many notable Armenians take on his cause. Chief among them is Simon Vratsian, the principal of the school. Vartan becomes one of the unofficial secretaries of this honorable Armenian intellectual who was the last prime minister of the first Armenian Republic before Armenia fell into the clutches of the Soviet empire in 1920. Vartan reads and learns all he can get his hands on at Jemaran. In addition, he writes many of Vratsian's letters since Simon is almost blind by then. Vartan, through this experience, if nothing else, becomes groomed for academic administration since he is exposed to it at a very early age and in all its multiple facets of fund raising and community affairs and public relations and vision and rigor and all other aspects of pedagogy. Vartan, in need of a father figure, in need of people to believe in him and encourage him, finds many in Beirut and in Jemaran, all of which is delicately and precisely depicted in The Road to Home. He completes the entire venerable "Hayakidagan" (Armenology) course, reads voraciously, learns about life in the fast and wild town which Beirut was in the 1950s and graduates with honors ready to be shipped out to the West coast where he is accepted in Stanford. Le Petit Paris, as Beirut is referred to, makes a man out of him and a man hungry for knowledge.
   
   The next fifth of the book is about his spectacular career at Stanford both as an undergraduate and graduate student. Again, his brilliance and remarkable attributes are detected by professors who become his champions for life! He is helped by these historians and scholars throughout his academic journey. They see a future for him he cannot even imagine and take it upon themselves to walk him through the steps to achieve greatness! Vartan is appreciated and guided by giants in his field who pave the way for him and are always rewarded by how well he does, given these opportunities. Instead of being supported by Jemaran throughout his stay at Stanford, he receives University support at the end of two years, finishes his BA that quickly and starts his graduate program right then and there. He has a rich life at Stanford, which molds him further as a man and as a scholar. He meets his future wife there and marries her in such spectacular fashion that I do not want to spoil it by paraphrasing the story here. You will have to read pages 132-135 to see for yourself. Clare Russell learns Armenian and becomes his mate for life from that time on. Theirs is a happy marriage and one where the journey is shared and burdens distributed and hardships met with equal courage and valor on both their parts.
   
   And its not that Vartan does not put Clare in harm's way! For starters, he receives a substantial travel and research grant to spend time in London, Paris, Beirut, Kabul and Karachi. His aim is to gather the raw data for his thesis on Afghanistan's transition to becoming a modern state. He takes Clare along for this trip but she is already pregnant so by the time they arrive in Beirut, she gives birth and stays there while Vartan goes to Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan and back on his own. This remarkable woman now has to fend for herself in a hotel room (where the giant cockroaches are described in vivid detail in the book) with a newborn son! She does so with the help of all the same cast of characters associated with Jemaran and the thriving Armenian community in Beirut when Vartan was there alone 6 years earlier. History repeats itself, Vartan avails himself of the generosity and friendship of old acquaintances and his research makes very good progress.
   
   Back to California they come and a job as a history instructor at San Francisco State University. Why? Because there are no jobs that can be arranged at AUB or Jemaran in Beirut! Vartan would have loved staying in Beirut. He tries and his meteoric rise to the top of US academic circles is because there are no suitable teaching jobs for him in Beirut! Lucky for us, one could say. Vartan faces the middle to late sixties in San Francisco. A less than ideal choice given the turmoil at the local Universities then, the hippy movement, the sit ins, the Black Panthers, the anti-war movement... It is a mess and a new assistant professor has to face it all in a hot seat that was SF State. Not as bad as Berkeley, as the book explains, but close.
   
   It is no surprise then that the newly minted PhD who is barely able to make ends meet with an academic salary at a state school (living with a wife and son) and teaching part time here and there including Stanford and other colleges, welcomes the chance to go to the university of Texas, after a short stint at UCLA and teach at a research university with a graduate program and be a historian. His book "The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan: Politics of Reform and Modernization, 1880-1946" was just then accepted for publication by Stanford University press. In the meantime, He visits Beirut again and Armenia and hopes to write a book on the modern history of that country. Instead, he gets involved in University politics down in Austin. He is asked to help the dean and that work eventually lands him in the middle of political infighting within factions of the faculty and the administration. The Road to Home describes this in great detail in chapter 10. Vartan Gregorian, learns to be an active player in University politics at UT. He then takes an endowed chair in Armenian studies at U Penn. and escapes the firings and turmoil that leave no friendly faces down in Texas. He also joins the history department of this prestigious ivy league school and embarks on the fast track career to high level university administration. He first becomes the founding dean of the college of arts and sciences at the age of thirty five! This is followed by heroic efforts at organizing the university for the bicentennial of our nation in 1976, a major fund raising campaign, and the attainment of the top academic post of Provost. Dr. Gregorian learns what its like to deal with the board of Trustees of a university and all the internal politics and machinations that would make the chatter at the Tower of Babel sound like a Gregorian Chant. He perseveres, helps solve many of U Penn's problems and sets a very good course for the university. Alas, there is opposition to his ascension to the post of President. In the meantime, he agonizes over the offer of being Berkeley's Chancellor, a lifelong dream of his and ultimate goal throughout his early academic career. He decides to stay at Penn because he is told he should finish what he started. He is told that he is a shoe in for the presidency. He should just wait and assume the helm. Alas, he is blocked at the end and many of the fat cats who are trustees of the university who do not like him are, let us say, blue bloods, who do not believe he would have the "social graces" (or the looks, perhaps) for such a job... Hmm... racism? You bet! Discrimination against a darker skinned, curly haired, short Armenian man whose brilliance and dedication and virtues they could not see? Surely! Philadelphia is well depicted in this book as being full of "Mayflower" syndrome suffering WASPs. Poor Vartan falls victim to their ingrate state.
   
   But, the star of this story ascends far beyond a stuffy old school's board room antics and lands as the savior of the New York City Public Library system. This eighty nine distinct branch or property system which was at the verge of collapse and irreversible decay is resurrected under the able leadership of Dr. Gregorian for eight long years of fourteen hour days and double lunches and double dinners and fund raising and consciousness raising activities and innovations and vision setting leadership. At the completion of that renovation campaign he finally accepts the presidency of an Ivy League School, Brown University, in Providence Rhode Island. His nine years there reorient that school towards a far more successful path and improve its minority and gender distribution and hiring practices and many other modern innovations that take Brown to a far higher ground of success than it was in 1989 when Dr. Gregorian took over its helm.
   
   The latest chapter in the career of this tireless and remarkable man dedicated to academia, scholarship, libraries, books, teaching and a life of the mind is to head up the Carnegie Corporation, which is a charitable organization of the first caliber dedicated to the betterment of the world through the dissemination of knowledge. Dr. Gregorian is a happy man from all appearances. He is a tireless advocate for causes he believes in with a passion. His enthusiasm is contagious. He sets courses for action and follows through with them till the end. He is a no nonsense achiever who has aided many a worthwhile cause with absolute dedication and imperturbable resolve. He has never rested on his laurels nor has he taken the easy way out.
   
   One could imagine that being an Armenian and an immigrant gave Dr. Gregorian the advantage over more traditional local talent. He sure had something to prove and he was hungry throughout the journey. He appreciated all that was done for him and he took none of it for granted. He wanted to make his life mean something. He knew of the Armenian genocide and the displacement of his people. He knew that an Armenian owes his being alive to divine fate and that squandering his life away and the opportunities so many had sacrificed so much to make possible for him would be cruelly wasted if it were not his task to make them all proud. As this book shows, one can not praise this dedicated administrator enough for all the potential he has unleashed in New York, Philadelphia and Rhode Island by untiring dedication and a principled approach to the betterment of this land of freedom he has adopted as his own.
   
   My only criticism of the book is that it leaves so much out! There is so much more one would have liked to hear him describe and discuss. For instance, and this is just the tip of the iceberg, how did he perceive the differences between the Armenians he met in Beirut from the Iranian Armenians he knew back in Tabriz and Teheran? How about the Armenian communities in the SF bay area and Philadelphia, NY and Providence? Any differences and similarities there, he would care to dissect for us? What happened to his book on Armenia? Are there notes left of that work? His research and plans? Is that water under the bridge now? Did he ever produce any graduate students of his own in Texas or U Penn? What are his PhD students up to, if he has had any? That is, what is his intellectual legacy as a scholar? And another thing, what does he think of Afghanistan today? The book makes reference to 9-11 and to unrelated speeches he has given in 2002. How about Afghanistan? He was, after all, a world expert in this arena at one point not so long ago. Similarly, what efforts has he made on behalf of the Armenian cause or for free and independent Armenia since 1991? What are his views on how Armenia's intellectual capital can be preserved or augmented? What can we do and what course of action would he suggest given his vast experience at administering universities and charitable organizations? It would help a lot if he would write publicly and let everyone know what he sees as a best coarse of action. Dr. Gregorian is an asset of immeasurable proportions to a community that can only be awed and proud to call him one of their own. In short, read The Road to Home. Its message to all Armenians and Americans seems to be, you can find a home (after all) if you keep your eyes wide open in this land of vast opportunity.



5. I first learned of Vartan Gregorian when he became provost of the University of Pennsylvania while I was attending grad school there. He was a colorful figure who seemed to be as much at odds with the university as the contentious students during the turbulent late 70's. Later, he went on to head the New York Public Library and then Brown University. He seemed to have a magical way to become influential and well-liked. After reading this book, I liked him a lot and wished I'd had a chance to know him while I was at Penn. Gregorian is a man of letters and great charisma.
   
   Gregorian's story of his life is as charming as his public persona. From the opening lines about his life in Tabriz, Iran as a member of the Armenian minority community there, to his wise grandmother who raised him, his life is exciting and fraught with tragedy and pitfalls. His mother dies in childbirth and his father essentially abandons the family. Somehow, Vartan manages to find an education despite great difficulties and he is sponsored finally to go to the Armenian University in Beirut. From there, his career as a professor and man of letters takes off and he soars, always helped by friends of influence who provide that wind under his wings. And he's grateful. He moves some thirty times (not thirty jobs, as he points out) and goes from Stanford to Texas to Penn, to New York and places in between. All along he meets luminaries like Jackie Kennedy Onassis, the Queen of England, makes friends with former BU president John Silber and yet seems to stay folksy and unaffected by all the glitter.
   
   The book is highly readable and a fine memoir--whether you've heard of Gregorian or not, this is a wonderful tale about a man who overcame ridiculously bad odds to become one of America's most influential public figures in education. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

1 comments about Head Over Heels in the Dales.

1. This is book two of a series about a school inspector in Yorkshire and it is delightful. (You should read book one first if possible). I was first drawn to it because of my enjoyment of James Herriot's books but after just a few pages I was hooked on it for its own merits. Any one who is a parent, a teacher, or just a lover of children will enjoy this. It is a gentle story with a running thread of romance but the primary emphasis is on the children and the teachers in the various schools inspected by Mr. Phinn. He obviously loves his job and is passionate about helping children reach for the stars. I'm really looking forward to books three and four.

5 comments about Reiki: The Legacy of Dr. Usui (Shangri-La (Twin Lakes, Wis.).).

1. This book explains the beginnings and history of Reiki and gives examples of how to use the energy not only for healing the body, but getting rid of old guilts and fears, helping your plants grow, and much more. Such dramatic results have been seen with this method that more and more hospitals in the U.S. are having a Reiki Master on call to help in aiding the healing process of their patients. Even though the symbols are not shown, this book gives the author's tested examples of the results achieved using this universal energy that is available to all of us. I highly recommend this book.



2. I give this to my first level Reiki Students to help take away the mystery of how Reiki got started in the United States and it's source.



3. This is an excellent book. I highly recommend it for my students and for other Reiki Practitioners.



4. I have studied Reiki and am a Reiki Master. I give this book to all of my Reiki students because it explains Reiki so simply and well. I especially like that it is informative without giving the impression that only the author's opinion of Reiki is important, and also that it sites Reiki's founder, Dr. Mikao Usui. It is clearly a tool to help one further one's understanding of Reiki.



5. Thank you Frank Arjava Petter for being daring and brave to bring the 'real' version of Dr. Usui's Reiki to the west. I had from the beginning a little difficulty to accept everything which was said about the 'grand-masters' and their likes. And in the past very little facts were given about Dr. Usui and mainly in a kind of fairy story tale. Now I can accept Reiki as I believe Reiki should be: free from major money making and available for all people who truly wish to heal themselves, others and the world. God and Reiki bless us all. B. Müller, Reiki Master, South Africa

5 comments about Walking Out on the Boys.

1. Men groping women. Men coming on to women, and making incredible jackasses of themselves in the process. Men getting drunk and acting like barbarians. Men with one thing in mind. Men whose compulsion to talk about sex is so strong that they do it at highly inappropriate times in public. Men who think that pressuring women is their God-given right. If you think that what I just described is a high school football team on an overdose of steroids, you're wrong. These sexual antics weren't perpetrated by adolescents with testosterone bubbling out their ears, they were committed by male doctors at Stanford University. Not being stupid, these demigods put two and two together and realized that they could use their power to pressure women. One of these men made a fatal mistake, though: he pressured Dr. Frances Conley, a topnotch neurosurgeon and renowned researcher at Stanford. Bad move, fella. I suppose that guy never learned that if you're going to pick a fight, you don't provoke someone who can whack you back so hard you just might rethink whether it's wise to be a bully.

   As publicity spread about Dr. Conley's fight, more and more women came forward to reveal their stories. This was certainly an eye-opening book. Before reading it, I'd never given much thought about the sexual harassment of women in medicine and allied healthcare fields. Perhaps we're more civilized here in Michigan, because I've never seen or heard of any such hanky-panky. Well, let me revise that last statement: I have witnessed a lot of sexual inducement, but what I saw was women chasing men not the other way around. But everyone knows that those California folks are trendsetters.

   Dr. Conley never envisioned herself as a trendsetter, though. For years, she passively participated in the abuse until a concatenation of events convinced her that it was time to draw a line in the sand. To make a long story short, the men didn't believe she'd put up much of a fight, but she did, and they lost. Big time.

   (...) Perhaps the most chilling message in this book is that some men in positions of power are willing to use that power to stifle the careers of women. So what is an attractive woman to assume? That if she goes into medicine her pulchritude will serve as a magnet for sexual harassment? Perhaps this abuse is, unbeknownst to me, more pervasive than I think. I suppose because most of my friends are women, I can't understand men who view women as being somehow inferior. However, you shouldn't necessarily construe from that statement that I think women physicians are as competent, on average, as male physicians. There's no doubt that some are, and there's no doubt that Dr. Conley is a superior physician, not just competent. (...) My only major criticism of the book is that it is too focused upon abuse of women by men. Since the core of this book is hinged upon some of the depredations that ensue when power is abused, I think she could have achieved a more balanced perspective by pointing out that powerful people often use their power against men, too ý not just women. I've seen male docs fight one another with such a vehemence that it made the stories in Dr. Conley's book seem as pleasant as afternoon tea and cookies with a neighbor. Consequently, while I don't intend to trivialize the unfortunate reality of the abuse Dr. Conley documents, it's important to keep in mind that this abuse is but one aspect of a much larger problem. In defense of Dr. Conley, broadening the scope of this book to include other aspects of hospital politics would have diluted the message she wished to inculcate, and it would have made for a very unwieldy book. With that in mind, I suppose I'm on shaky ground by wishing that her book had a wider focus. Her book, her demeanor, her dedication, her resolve, and her competence are commendable. Dr. Conley is a great doctor and I am happy to have met her, however indirectly, by reading this book.

   Review by Kevin Pezzi, M.D.




2. As a minority faculty in the academics Frances Conley's book vividly portrays the reality of the ivory tower that, though pretentiously progressive in ideas, is way behind the iota of gender equality that exists outside the academe. I, sometimes, feel I am living in the medieval period when entering the academe.

   When I first came across this book I thought this must have been written in the seventies and I could share it with my students as a historical autobiography of sexism in an academic institution. I was horrified to find that it was written in the nineties about one of the most prestigious institution in California.

   I have always felt alone, alienated in the academe and of course disconnected from other women who were struggling too much to bother with the problems of their women peers. This book validated my experience and helped me understand where my alienation was coming from.

   I wish this book could be a standard read for all freshman students in all universities. Only when women who appear to be in power tell their stories of powerlessness and abuse can we act collectively to stop the misogyny that exists among our men and more particularly among our elite men.




3. I'm not an MD or a PhD; I don't work in a hospital or academia. Yet I too have experienced sexual harassment, and I too have consulted the EEO department that is supposed to get involved in handling these issues, and I found that they were disinterested, that they gave subtle and obvious messages that the problem was "my" problem and not the corporation's, and that they relied on my being too timid or unmotivated to initiate a lawsuit so the whole thing could be, well, ignored. Sexual harassment exists because the society permits men (even encourages men) to expect that it is their right to harass women. Not all men harass, and not all men admire harassers. In fact, it is quite the opposite, but those who possess the attitude that women who dare to compete must be put down through sexual threat or debasement will harass (they also enjoy and even need it, since these men have very real problems). Through her description of her own experiences, the author illuminates the social mechanism of harassment. She also brings to light the story that all we women know -- what it feels like to be the victim not just of a troubled person but of an organization that insists she accept the role of victim. When we are harassed, we women discover the battle we are in, not against one man but against all those societies which are founded on (this does sound harsh, I know) the hatred of women. This is a marvelous book -- hard to read at times if you've been there -- but it is important that women know what we are facing (especially our daughters, who like us may have been programmed to think that all men will be nice to us, will treat us fairly, and that if someone is abusive, it is our own fault, there is something wrong with me, etc.). Important too is having the author detail the steps she took to handle the harassment. This is a very supportive book for anyone enduring just such a situation (harassment as well as gender discrimination, which is a lot more rife and a lot less obvious). I'd recommend this to any woman who is willing to step outside of the traditional role, because we all need to know what we are up against, how the system is going to fail us, and especially all the steps we are entitled to take to combat this problem so that we change society's viewpoint and not just our own. I'd also recommend this to men, because there are many who are supportive of women in the workplace. Our husbands and boyfriends need to read this book to know how difficult it is for women, because in the end we can only effect a change if we all stand together.



4. Frances Conley offers a compelling indictment of gender discrimination at Stanford Medical School, past and present, focussing on her own recent experience. I started this book at midnight and could not put it down until finishing it at 4 a.m. Conley provides case after case of medical school professors given virtually absolute and unchecked power over their subordinates and their subordinates' careers, abusing that power, and the medical school administration covering up that abuse. While she never addresses the issues of solidarity in the face of sexual harassment, her cases all indicate that when one woman protests, she loses, and only a pattern of abuse reported by multiple women leads to any punishment of the harassers at all. Conley was fortunate and grateful that 37 others came forward to support her claim that Gerald Silverberg engaged in inappropriate sexual contact and other activities counterindicating his capability for leadership. I'll be passing this book onto many women who have had the choice to be treated at Stanford Hospital and may well now rethink that choice.



5. Sadly, any woman who's achieved a doctorate (& not just in medicine) will relate wholeheartedly to this book. I greatly admire Dr. Conley's unbelievable courage in standing up to the Boys' Club & trying to make things better for women in academia. Hopefully this book will encourage ALL women to stand up to the misogyny & be heard.

No comments about Anne Sexton: Teacher of Weird Abundance (Suny Series, Feminist Theory in Education).

4 comments about The Love of Impermanent Things: A Threshold Ecology (World As Home, The).

1. This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. Take Annie Dillard, Barbara Kingsolver and maybe the Dali Llama and put them together and you get Mary Rose O'Reilley. I loved how she ponders all the questions many of us ponder when we reach a certain age, like `Are we our vocation?' or "How should we be spending our time without guilt", "How we can feel lonely even though we seek solitude" "How come we can't be aimless any more?" All of this is mixed in with ordinary life events written in a very poetic and beautiful way with enough sarcasm to keep it from being boring. I don't know why more isn't said about this author, I think she is extremely talented and I'm glad I fel upon her writing - I hope we will see more of it.



2. and I am only about 100 pages into it. I heard the author interviewed on NPR and decided impulsively to buy the book. It is incredibly written -- funny, wise, deep, reflecting. I am reading it slowly, savoring the stories, and trying to embrace the wisdom of "living the life that I am". I have a copy for my spiritual director...and plan to buy another for one of my dearest friends. For all of us who seek the One that embraces us in Love and Beauty, I recommend this book. Prepare to laugh...at the stories...at yourself...and then settle into the deepest regions of the heart to contemplate what God calls you to be.



3. O'Reilly is an excellent writer whose work exhibits the rare combination of sharp observation and deep kindness. She is a seeker, not content with received wisdom or easy answers; her thinking is lively and precise. She also knows how to tell a good story -- and she's very funny.



4. What a fascinating book! I would highly recommend this read. O'Reilley's way with words is mesmerizing. Her book makes you stop and think about your own history, your own family with all its quirks. Her sense of humor and deep reflection on her life make this book a true pleasure to read.