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The Rivers
Amazon
Alex Shoumatoff
Sierra Club Books, 1986
"A journalistic introduction to the Amazon today based both on a journey through
the Amazon and on field work. It introduces the Amazon as a landscape
and as a province of the imagination. This book has a strong sense
of writers of the past but also of a contemporary view of Amazon--a
view of what it was and what it's becoming."
Candace Slater, Spanish and Portuguese Departments
Revolt
of the Cockroach People
Oscar "Zela" Acosta
Straight Arrow Books, 1973
"This autobiographical novel opens in the middle of a violent demonstration
with the author disappointed that, because he is a lawyer, the police
won't attack him. The novel is based on the true experiences
of lawyer/writer Acosta during
the trying times of the Chicano Movement and the Viet Nam war. It
is hilarious and wild, the kind of novel to enjoy."
Alfred Arteaga, English Department
Border
Country, a Novel
Raymond Williams
Chatto and Windus, 1960
"Williams novel is the moving story of an individual coming to grips with cultural
change, experienced as the result of social and geographical mobility. Matthew
Price has left the rural Welsh community where he grew up in a working-class
household and moved to London, where he lives a metropolitan, middle-class
life. The novel represents Matthew's attempt to assimilate the experience
of his childhood, structured by the values exemplified by his father,
with the comparatively different circumstances of his adult life."
Michael Mascuch, Rhetoric Deportment
Dakota
Diaspora: Memoirs of a Jewish Homesteader
Sophie Trupin
University of Nebraska Press, 1984
"The life history of an immigrant homesteader to North Dakota at the turn
of the century with important insights into the process of her identification
with her Jewish heritage."
William Simmons, Center for the Teaching and Study of American Cultures
The Way
We Lived: California Indian Reminiscences, Stories and Songs
ed. Malcolm Margolin
Heyday Books (Berkeley), 1981
"Folklore, life histories, memories and anecdotes collected from earlier presentations
of California Indians about their lives and experiences on the California
frontier."
William Simmons, Center for the Teaching and Study of American Cultures
The Selfish
Gene
Richard Dawkins
Oxford University Press, 1976
"Though this is a science book, Dawkins wants you to read it almost as
though it were science fiction. A zoologist, he explains in
non-technical language some subtle and complicated ideas about how
Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection is central
to the study of social behavior. Dawkins discusses major themes
in social theory: the concepts of altruistic and selfish behavior,
the genetical definition of self-interest, the evolution of aggressive
behavior, kinship theory, sex ratio theory, reciprocal altruism,
deceit, and the natural selection of sex differences. He hopes
to astonish you with the truth that you are merely a survival machine--a
robot vehicle blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules
known as genes."
Ron Choy, Center for the Teaching and Study of American Cultures
Native
Realm. A Search for Self-Definition
Czeslaw Milosz
U.C. Press Paperback, 1981
"This, the autobiography of the Lithuanian poet who won the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1980, is a beautifully written and powerful moral
document. It represents vividly Milosz's attempt to make sense
of the experience of being an Eastern European in the twentieth century:
of having, as Milosz describes it "to gaze into the hells of our
century." Despite its particularity, Milosz's experience enables
him to articulate and suggest answers to questions shared by individuals in
a variety of social and cultural situations. This book is of value
to anyone who is sensitive to the personal impact of its history."
Michael Mascuch, Rhetoric Department
The Fate
of the Forest: Developers, Destroyers and Defenders of the Amazon.
Suzanne Hecht and Alexander Cockburn
Routledge, Chapman & Hall, Inc., 1989
"This look at the destruction of the Amazon depicts the ecological consequences of
development and the logic of economic and national conquest of the region; Chico
Mendez and the indigenous resistance to despoilation of the forests; and includes
a critique of well-meaning environmentalists."
Richard Walker, Geography Department
The New
California: Facing the 21st Century
Dan Walters
California Journal Press, 1986
"A quick overview of the people and politics of California by California's
leading political columnist, this work provides a region by region summary.
Walters emphasizes the neglect of the commonwealth by budget-cutting governments
and the development of the two-tiered society."
Richard Walker, Geography Department
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