From My Bookshelves

[Dreamwoven]

I once knew someone who in response to my browsing his bookshelves claimed I "had leafed through his mind". I thought this was quite smart, so I will repeat the exercise here, starting with a post on the works of Ellis Peters.

[Dreamwoven]

Ellis Peters is the name under which Edith Pargeter wrote the stories about Cadfae (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadfael)l, in the Cadfael Chronicles. I bought about five of these. The series was televised by the BBC some decades ago.

[Dreamwoven]

the other short series of books I bought was by the Scottish author Nigel Tranter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Tranter) who wrote some 50+ historical novels (including several 3-volume studies about Scotland (One was on Robert the Bruce). I bought some 7 books by him and read them all, in addition borrowing books from libraries where we lived. Tranter did a great service to Scotland for this work and he had several awards and honours for it, including an OBE for services to literature.

[Dreamwoven]

Scotland has always been a major interest of mine. In the late 1960s I had a lectureship at Aberdeen University, King's College. I learned to ramble and go up mountains, especially in the Coolins of Skye. Never got to the top but the book by W.A. Poucher The Scottish Peaks proved to be invaluable as a guide, complete with maps and photos showing the ways up.

Diane Morgan (http://www.birlinn.co.uk/Diane-Morgan/) published many books on Aberdeen, The Spital being one of my favourites, as I rented a flat there. I have several of her books, including Lost Aberdeen and Aberdeen's Granite Mile.

Also of interest is the history of Old Aberdeen, edited by John Smith. This was the auld toon, where King's College is located, between St. Machar's Cathedral and the Chanonry down to King's College.

[Dreamwoven]

Christopher Day Places of the Soul: Architecture and Environmental Design as a Healing Art Aquarian Press (1990)

This book had a dramatic impact on my life. It was an anthroposophical book drawing many of its lessons from the Steiner kindergarten Nant-y-Cwm in Wales.

It focuses on making buildings fit with nature, for example, by taking care to place the building in such a way that it isn't just plonked down like a lump of jelly, but grows out of the ground, as, for example a rock does, naturally. The same is achieved by nooks and crannies created in a building.

These images of Nat-y-Cwm give a sense of what this involves: nant-y-cwm Steiner school (https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=AwrB8qDcl4hYb24AXkaLuLkF;_ylc=X1MDOTYw NTc0ODMEX3IDMgRiY2sDZWxkYjBhdGFxcG1obyUyNmIlM0Q0JT I2ZCUzRDlfQW9yNHBwWUVTc1h6WkIxa0toZXlqa3hKYy0lMjZz JTNENXIlMjZpJTNESXNvd2g3cGRrQmIuTldmYkdOcVoEZnIDeX NldF9zYWZhcmlfc3ljX29yYWNsZQRncHJpZANmOGtOXzh1b1Jw Q0F5QUxEWjU3Ql9BBG10ZXN0aWQDbnVsbARuX3N1Z2cDMQRvcm lnaW4DaW1hZ2VzLnNlYXJjaC55YWhvby5jb20EcG9zAzEEcHFz dHIDbmFudC15LWN3bSBzdGVpbmVyIHNjaG9vbARwcXN0cmwDMj UEcXN0cmwDMjUEcXVlcnkDbmFudCB5IGN3bSBzdGVpbmVyIHNj aG9vbAR0X3N0bXADMTQ4NTM0Njc5MgR2dGVzdGlkA0IzMzc1;_ ylc=X1MDOTYwNTc0ODMEX3IDMgRiY2sDZWxkYjBhdGFxcG1oby UyNmIlM0Q0JTI2ZCUzRDlfQW9yNHBwWUVTc1h6WkIxa0toZXlq a3hKYy0lMjZzJTNENXIlMjZpJTNESXNvd2g3cGRrQmIuTldmYk dOcVoEZnIDeXNldF9zYWZhcmlfc3ljX29yYWNsZQRncHJpZANm OGtOXzh1b1JwQ0F5QUxEWjU3Ql9BBG10ZXN0aWQDbnVsbARuX3 N1Z2cDMQRvcmlnaW4DaW1hZ2VzLnNlYXJjaC55YWhvby5jb20E cG9zAzEEcHFzdHIDbmFudC15LWN3bSBzdGVpbmVyIHNjaG9vbA RwcXN0cmwDMjUEcXN0cmwDMjUEcXVlcnkDbmFudCB5IGN3bSBz dGVpbmVyIHNjaG9vbAR0X3N0bXADMTQ4NTM0Njc5MgR2dGVzdG lkA0IzMzc1?gprid=f8kN_8uoRpCAyALDZ57B_A&pvid=IIg1ZjY5LjHqtWBXVazaOAFdMjE3LgAAAAA_PLEu&p=nant+y+cwm+steiner+school&ei=UTF-8&iscqry=&fr=yset_safari_syc_oracle&fr2=sa-gp-images.search.yahoo.com):

Finally, positioning windows plays an important part in creating both comfort and relaxation.

It is impossible to give a detailed description of this in one short post. So this will have to do.

[Dreamwoven]

Like so many 1940s people I enjoyed reading Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. I read it several times and also the other books associated with Tolkien's work.

But my favourite is Journeys of Frodo by Barbara Strachey (Grafton 1992), an atlas of maps, hand-drawn and with a feeling of simplicity.

[Dreamwoven]

Another Tolkien book is Master of Middle-earth: the achievement of J.R.R. Tolkien by Paul Kocher (Penguin, Harmondsworth 1972).

Short but packed with insights.

[Dreamwoven]

Three books which made a huge impact on many of us as students at Aberdeen University are by John Prebble (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Prebble), The Fire and Sword Trilogy which traces the destruction of the clan system in Scotland: Glencoe, Culloden, and The Highland Clearances.

If you have ever wondered why the valleys of the Scottish Highlands are so de-populated, this trilogy of books will help you understand why. It was about breaking the loyalty of the clans to the clan leaders, a task that involved both military and economic measures. I will look at further books by James Hunter on the economics of the Clearances, but the Clearances were the result of the spread of sheep-farming to replace the more labour-intensive small-holding farming.

[Dreamwoven]

James Hunter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hunter_(historian)) The Making of the Crofting Community (Birlinn, 2010) is s study in the revival of crofting in the 21st Century. We had shortly before bought and moved into a croft in Sweden. It is small (2 bedrooms), and on a small piece of land, and I came across this book by James Hunter, tracing the re-development of the crofting tradition in the Western Highlands and Islands of Scotland. It demands physical fitness to manage the land of a croft. And for us it is a home, so we don't try to grow crops for ourselves, nor had the previous owner done so. She just lived there.

But it discusses the struggles to create the legislative framework for this form of land tenure in the UK.

[Dreamwoven]

James Hunter A Dance Called America: the Scottish Highlands, the United States and Canada (Mainstream Publishing Company, Edinburgh, (2006 Edition)

"A new dance was devised in the Isle of Skye in the Eighteenth Century. An exhilarating dance. A dance, one visitor reports, "the emigration from Skye had occasioned. The visitor asks for the dance's name. They called it America he is told." (preface)

[Dreamwoven]

Who Will Write Our History?: rediscovering a hidden archive from the Warsaw Ghetto Samuel D. Kassow (Penguin, 2007). Today (27th January) Dagens Nyheter (p.4) mentioned that this day is the 72nd anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. I would add to the newspaper text that it was the Red Army that was the liberator.

Reading about the Warsaw Ghetto was painful and difficult.

[Dreamwoven]

I never really enjoyed Dorothy Dunnett books and only have two: Nicollo Rising (1986) and Spring of the Ram (1987). I used to have some of the Lymond Chronicles but didn't bring them with me when we moved into our house in 2010. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Dunnett#The_House_of_Niccol.C3.B2

The House of Niccolò is a series of eight historical novels set in the late-fifteenth-century European Renaissance. The protagonist of the series is Nicholas de Fleury (Niccolò, Nicholas van der Poele, or Claes), a talented boy of uncertain birth who rises to the heights of European merchant banking and international political intrigue. The series shares most of the locations in Dunnett's earlier series, the Lymond Chronicles, but it extends much further geographically to take in the important urban centres of Bruges, Venice, Florence, Geneva, and the Hanseatic League; Burgundy, Flanders, and Poland; Iceland; the Iberian Peninsula and Madeira; the Black Sea cities of Trebizond and Caffa; Persia; the Mediterranean islands of Cyprus and Rhodes; Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula; and West Africa and the city of Timbuktu. Nicholas's progress is intertwined with such historical characters as Anselm Adornes, James III of Scotland and James II of Cyprus.

[Amura]

Am impressed with this, I now. Really belive that people still read alot

[Dreamwoven]

Thank you, Amura!

[Dreamwoven]

Christopher Hibbert (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Hibbert): Redcoats and Rebels: the American Revolution through British Eyes Norton Paperback (2002).

We tend to assume that the birth of the USA was somehow almost automatic. Not so: as this book demonstrates. In the first place it was not just the birth of the USA, albeit a strip of country which in 1775 stretched from New Hampshire to Georgia, it was also the birth of Canada, or at least the Francophone part. Reading this, one is struck by the extent to which George Washington, leading the rebel army, preserved his small force by withdrawing westward, refusing to commit it against a larger and well-armed British force, other than harassment and sudden strikes at a weaker force.

This is classic guerrilla tactics, but you have to have enough space in your rear to do this. The other fact to bear in mind is that telegraphy had not been invented then, a crude semaphore system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraphy) was first developed in France in 1790, but it only worked on land not over a large ocean, such as separates Europe from North America - 3,000 miles of it.

This book has stimulated me to read more of Hibbert's work.

[Dreamwoven]

An old book that I love is by Alfred Watkins (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Watkins) The Old Straight Track(Abacus, 1994).

First published in 1925 and out of print for many years, The Old Straight Track remains the most important source for the study of the ancient straight tracks or leys that criss-cross the British Isles - a fascinating system which was old when the Romans came to Britain." (back cover text)

Another book that I bought is Francis Hitching Earth Magic (Picador, 1976). This is a world-wide phenomenon.

But Watkins book is very detailed and unique. Many ley lines are found in the English border country near Wales, where Watkins was born (Hereford).

[Dreamwoven]

Norbert Elias Reflections on a life Polity Press (1994).

I was a first year student at Leicester University when I attended his lectures (and also Anthony Giddens). I was very impressed by Elias, especially. It is in English and well worth reading!

[Dreamwoven]

Merilyn Moos The Language of Silence Cressida Press (2010). Merilyn was the child of jewish refugees from Germany, and since my father never wanted to talk about his Jewish background it created a silence around his life, similar to that which the author, Merilyn experienced in hers. So I bought her book, only to find that in many respects there were, of course, many differences. In the first place my aunt took me to Czechoslovakia several times, so I could visit the places that my father lived in - Puchov, Levoča, Nitra - a voyage of discovery as a young teenager I learned a lot from. Of course, still there were silences I could not explore, but it was a start.

[Dreamwoven]

Bernadotte: Napoleon's Marshal, Sweden's King Alan Palmer (John Murray Ltd, 1990).

Lacking a male heir to the throne, John-Paul Bernadotte applied and became King of Sweden in 1818, as Charles X1V of Sweden and Norway (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_XIV_John_of_Sweden). His line still rules today, the current Bernadotte King of Sweden (though no longer King of Norway). As Charles XIV John, Bernadotte made Sweden neutral, and it has been neutral ever since. This book tells the story of this extraordinary man.

[Dreamwoven]

This thread gives just a small selection from my bookshelves. In addition I have some 20 books by Anne Perry, 6 by Peter Robinson, 2 by David Baldacci, several in Swedish by Jan Guillou, the 4 volumes by Vilhelm Moberg on Swedish immigrants to Minnesota, two on the Habsburg Dual Monarchy, and one by Julia Orringer The Invisible Bridge. I have two by Anthony Beevor on the fall of Berlin and Stalingrad.

Its not impossible that I may add to this thread in the future, as reading is one of my increasingly important pastimes as I get older.

[Dreamwoven]

I also have two books by Anthony Beevor "Stalingrad" and "Berlin". Stalingrad was circa the day I was born, the panzers were racing for the Don crossings. Two vital events that formed the early postwar years. The success with which the Russians, almost single-handedly, defeated Nazi Germany was remarkable. In the end, the allies (mainly Britain, France and the USA) had to hasten to reach Berlin at the same time as the Russians did.

The other event was the success of Miklós Horthy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miklós_Horthy) in preserving the jews of Hungary from extinction. The above link shows how much he did. It didn't help my father, whose relatives were all killed in Auschwitz, but today the Jewish minority in Hungary is thriving and the second largest synagogue in the world at Dohany Utsa (Tobacco Street) in Budapest (http://www.greatsynagogue.hu/gallery_syn.html) is thanks to the rule of Horthy. Even today the present Hungarian Government has good relations with the Putin Government in Russia, and the Hungarians were the first to throw off the Soviet Yoke in 1956: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956.

All in all, Hungary has a special place in European history. There remains in Hungary a sense of loss that the Treaty of Trianon (http://www.hunsor.se/trianon/treatyoftrianon1920.htm) nearly 120 years ago, created.

[Dreamwoven]

Another book that I have now read twice is The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer (Vintage Books, 2011). It reminded me how much of the Hungarian language I remember from my childhood. The book is long, some 750 pages, but I love the way the Budapest railway stations are named: Keleti (dawn), and Nyugati (sunset or resting), and a street called "Forget-me-not". Set in the late 1930s and early 1940s mainly in Paris and Hungary it describes very well the trials and tribulations of her Jewish relatives. She was helped in writing it by her grand uncle and aunt. Its the kind of book that I will return to read again.

[Dreamwoven]

Critical Criminology has been an interest of mine since the late 1960s and the early 1970s, when I attended the National Deviancy Symposium at York University. The books of C. Wright Mills, especially his essay on The Sociological Imagination. I will have to post this as a quick reply and return to it tomorrow to extend it and add links.

[Dreamwoven]

The National Deviancy Symposium was about the so-called New Criminology that sprang up in the late 1960s and continued well into the 1970s.

[Dreamwoven]

For some reason I have been unable to edit the last two posts, but will continue it here anyway. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Deviancy_Symposium. Several of the contributors made major contributions but undoubtedly the most influential was Jock Young: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jock_Young, who died recently. I bought his three most important books - The Exclusive Society (Sage, 1999), The Vertigo of Late Modernity (Sage, 2007) and The Criminological Imagination (Polity Press, 2011).

This trio of books make up the main part of his contribution. But see also Taylor, Walton and Young The New Criminology: for a social theory of deviance Routledge and Kegan Paul (1973), and Paul Walton and Jock Young The New Criminology Revisited (Palgrave and Macmillan (1998).

[Dreamwoven]

Jock Young's third book is titled The Criminological Imagination and is taken from C. Wright Mills The Sociological Imagination.

C. Wright Mills - see http://www.cwrightmills.org and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Wright_Mills. Mills died in his mid-40s, a great loss, but I have at least three books by him - White Collar and The Marxists in addition to the The Sociological Imagination, which has its own Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sociological_Imagination.

He was critical of "Grand Theory" and "Abstracted Empiricism".

[Dreamwoven]

Jock Young's third and last book, The Criminological Imagination, draws heavily on Wright Mills' essay The Sociological Imagination. Wright Mills was critical of Grand Theory, especially the work of Talcott Parsons, though who today remembers Parsons' ponderous study of social structure. He has been consigned to the rubbish bin of social theory. Abstracted Empiricism remains, detailed manipulation of statistical data remains, and both Wright Mills and Jock Young made withering critiques of this kind of empty analysis.

Jock Young cites an article in Criminology from May 2003 on the question "Do police raids reduce illegal drug dealing at Nuisance Bars?

Young comments as follows:
"The findings were, incidentally, "that police intervention suppresses levels of drug dealing during periods of active enforcement but the effects largely disappear when the intervention is withdrawn. (2003, p. 257)". No comment."

Young goes on to say that "it is cutting-edge stuff" "and the authors are well-published and respected".

Young adds the following observations:
"The Article simply fascinates me. The confetti of Greek letters, beta, lambda, epsilon, the masquerade of science, the strange litany of indicators: Time, Unemp, Risk, Nuisance, Closed, Dosage and Duration, seem in a different universe from the louche bars, dope smokers, snitches and police harassment of downtown Pittsburg. It is, of course, a full-blown example of abstracted empiricism." (this quote should be in colour, I usually choose blue, but here these options are not available).

I spent a couple of hours writing this post.

I need help. Could someone who understands my dilemma let me know when LitNet goes back to its old format Thank you.

[Dreamwoven]

Having published that post I should explain the rest of this story. I applied for a research studentship to several American universities in the late 1960s, hoping to study symbolic interaction. I only had one acceptance, from Minnesota University, so we went there. The first year course had several quantitive courses but only one symbolic interaction. This was to be the only course in symbolic interaction, so there was no way to do course at Minnesota in the subject. It was to be quantitative method or nothing. I got the message and resigned my position.

[Dreamwoven]

Abstracted empiricism was set to be the big growth point in the social sciences. Quite why, I don't understand...

[Dreamwoven]

Jock Young's third and last book, The Criminological Imagination, draws heavily on Wright Mills' essay The Sociological Imagination. Wright Mills was critical of Grand Theory, especially the work of Talcott Parsons, though who today remembers Parsons' ponderous study of social structure. He has been consigned to the rubbish bin of social theory. Abstracted Empiricism remains, detailed manipulation of statistical data remains, and both Wright Mills and Jock Young made withering critiques of this kind of empty analysis.

Jock Young cites an article in Criminology from May 2003 on the question "Do police raids reduce illegal drug dealing at Nuisance Bars?

Young comments as follows:
"The findings were, incidentally, "that police intervention suppresses levels of drug dealing during periods of active enforcement but the effects largely disappear when the intervention is withdrawn. (2003, p. 257)". No comment."

Young goes on to say that "it is cutting-edge stuff" "and the authors are well-published and respected".

Young adds the following observations:
"The Article simply fascinates me. The confetti of Greek letters, beta, lambda, epsilon, the masquerade of science, the strange litany of indicators: Time, Unemp, Risk, Nuisance, Closed, Dosage and Duration, seem in a different universe from the louche bars, dope smokers, snitches and police harassment of downtown Pittsburg. It is, of course, a full-blown example of abstracted empiricism."

I spent a couple of hours writing this post.

I need help. Could someone who understands my dilemma let me know when LitNet goes back to its old format Thank you.

The Sociological Imagination is a short book, and applies to other disciplines not just to sociology. A quick perusal of Mills' work makes this very clear. He is trying to understand society in terms of power relationships in society, and to do this needs to relate events in society in such a way that makes it understandable both in macro and micro terms, relating the levels to each other in a way that is easy to understand without a lot of theory or abstracted empirical work.

[Dreamwoven]

The Sociological Imagination is something that is relevant to all disciplines, indeed to all approaches to any subject. my guess is that the younger generation won't know about it at all, which is sad. We have one author on this website who specialises in power. If he/she is still around perhaps she will respond? Freudian Monkey is his name...

[Dreamwoven]

Something I have for a long time been interested in is how England became a protestant country. This happened in the late fifteen hundreds when Elisabeth Tudor was Queen: See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_I_of_England. At the time the outlook was not good. Spain was a global power with colonies in North and Central America at the time of the Spanish Armada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Armada. I have several books covering this period, listed below.

Antonia Fraser Mary Queen of Scots Methuen Paperback, 1969
Alison Weir Mary BoleynVintage, 2012
Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall Fourth Estate, 2010
C. J. Sansom Heartstone Pan Macmillan, 2010.

Of these the best was by Antonia Fraser, followed by C. J. Sansom.

In this sequence of posts I will focus on the first of these, Mary Queen of Scots.

[Dreamwoven]

I've come to understand that Joci was an important link person in our London life. She kept in touch with her sister Anci and visited her in Sheboygan, crossing the Atlantic on Cunard's Queen Mary. Anci did the same journey in reverse. Joci also introduced Maria to baking, as she*had a lot of recipes for continental cakes, like*sachertorte,*apple strudel,*rigo jancsi, Kugelhopf*- or kuglóf*(Hungarian) as I knew it - and*Linzer torte*(Linzer Torta) are all classic Dual Monarchy Habsburg era recipes.

Joci had a book of hand-written recipes in Hungarian and she and Maria made strudel with extremely thin pastry. Very difficult - I remember how they used to gently waft the pastry that had been stretched thin over the kitchen table by holding the flour-dusted cloth it was made on, to get air under it, so stretching it still further.

They baked for those who had come from Austria or other Habsburg countries like Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and many of their customers were jewish (the northwest is one of the main jewish areas of London with Golders Green, Finchley, Hampstead Garden Suburb, Willesden Green). At busy times they worked though the night. Sometimes I helped by dropping some plum jam in each chocolate cup pastry form they made. Pouring the melted chocolate to fill the cups was much harder that I left well alone. Later I delivered cakes to customers by car.*I only took my licence when I was 19, and went to Leicester University soon after, though whenever I visited my parents I helped out by undertaking deliveries.

It was nerve-wracking work, and if things went badly they often had to scrap that particular bake and start again.

As their reputation grew and became better known this became their main work and major source of family income, especially after Zoli got too ill to work (making beaver lamb in the East End). Beaver lamb was made from sheepskins that were chemically treated to look like fur. The treatment process my father had to use involved formaldehyde, and working it in a small glassed-in area with a working table (I was not allowed in, of course). There is a description of working of lambskins n the early 1900s in this website:
http://www.oldandsold.com/articles09/furs.shtml. With travelling he had always had a very long day. He was very good at preparing beaver lamb, and the glassed in work area was jokingly called “my father's gas chamber”.

He left that job eventually and bought the goodwill of a sweet and tobacconist shop in Kilburn and worked there long hours, earning very little but always worrying about its economics. I cycled in to give him a hand as well as keep him company during this time.

For me, personally, there is a third reason. I benefited greatly from the many journeys Joci took me to Czechoslovakia and Hungary. That way, I also met many of my catholic relatives in Hungary, whom I otherwise would never have known. The last time was to Levoĉa, meeting Lajos and his wife Jolán, both were gentle and sweet, and had suffered so much during the war hiding in the forests. We also met another Zoli who joined the partisans, though I can't remember his surname.*The Slovak Resistance Movement including the Slovak Partisans had Jewish Brigades in it, though I have no idea whether my uncle and his wife, Cita, fought in a Jewish Brigade or not. They probably fought holding the Dukla Pass connecting Slovakia and Poland and through which the Red Army had to fight to reach Slovakia. See also The Battle of the Dukla Pass: I've come to understand that Joci was an important link person in our London life. She kept in touch with her sister Anci and visited her in Sheboygan, crossing the Atlantic on Cunard's Queen Mary. Anci did the same journey in reverse. Joci also introduced Maria to baking, as she*had a lot of recipes for continental cakes, like*sachertorte,*apple strudel,*rigo jancsi, Kugelhopf*- or kuglóf*(Hungarian) as I knew it - and*Linzer torte*(Linzer Torta) are all classic Dual Monarchy Habsburg era recipes.

Joci had a book of hand-written recipes in Hungarian and she and Maria made strudel with extremely thin pastry. Very difficult - I remember how they used to gently waft the pastry that had been stretched thin over the kitchen table by holding the flour-dusted cloth it was made on, to get air under it, so stretching it still further.

They baked for those who had come from Austria or other Habsburg countries like Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and many of their customers were jewish (the northwest is one of the main jewish areas of London with Golders Green, Finchley, Hampstead Garden Suburb, Willesden Green). At busy times they worked though the night. Sometimes I helped by dropping some plum jam in each chocolate cup pastry form they made. Pouring the melted chocolate to fill the cups was much harder that I left well alone. Later I delivered cakes to customers by car.*I only took my licence when I was 19, and went to Leicester University soon after, though whenever I visited my parents I helped out by undertaking deliveries.

It was nerve-wracking work, and if things went badly they often had to scrap that particular bake and start again.

As their reputation grew and became better known this became their main work and major source of family income, especially after Zoli got too ill to work (making beaver lamb in the East End). Beaver lamb was made from sheepskins that were chemically treated to look like fur. The treatment process my father had to use involved formaldehyde, and working it in a small glassed-in area with a working table (I was not allowed in, of course). There is a description of working of lambskins n the early 1900s in this website:
http://www.oldandsold.com/articles09/furs.shtml. With travelling he had always had a very long day. He was very good at preparing beaver lamb, and the glassed in work area was jokingly called “Kemeny’s gas chamber”.

He left that job eventually and bought the goodwill of a sweet and tobacconist shop in Kilburn and worked there long hours, earning very little but always worrying about its economics. I cycled in to give him a hand as well as keep him company during this time.

For me, personally, there is a third reason. I benefited greatly from the many journeys Joci took me to Czechoslovakia and Hungary. That way, I also met many of my catholic relatives in Hungary, whom I otherwise would never have known. The last time was to Levoĉa, meeting Lajos and his wife Jolán, both were gentle and sweet, and had suffered so much during the war hiding in the forests. We also met another Zoli who joined the partisans, though I can't remember his surname.*The Slovak Resistance Movement including the Slovak Partisans had Jewish Brigades in it, though I have no idea whether my uncle and his wife, Cita, fought in a Jewish Brigade or not. They probably fought holding the Dukla Pass connecting Slovakia and Poland and through which the Red Army had to fight to reach Slovakia. See also The Battle of the Dukla Pass I've come to understand that Joci was an important link person in our London life. She kept in touch with her sister Anci and visited her in Sheboygan, crossing the Atlantic on Cunard's Queen Mary. Anci did the same journey in reverse. Joci also introduced Maria to baking, as she*had a lot of recipes for continental cakes,

[Dreamwoven]

Back to the correct thread. Mary Queen of Scots had a hard time of it in Elizabeth I's protestant England. Mary's father was James V of Scotland, who married Mary of Guises. So any child of hers would become Queen or King of Scotland, as, indeed happened. James VI of Scotland became the first of the Stuarts to unite the two kingdoms when he united the thrones of Scotland and England. But that was in the future.

[Dreamwoven]

Mary Queen of Scots had a hard life, executed, beheaded, by Elizabeth's orders which she agonised over for two months before issuing it. But Mary founded the Stuart Dynasty, that united Scotland and England. She also had a very dignified end preserving her quiet calm throughout the execution. The Stuart Dynasty was in many ways a disaster, strengthening the London Parliament.

[Dreamwoven]

Tia DeNora Beethoven and the Construction of Genius: Musical politics in Vienna, 1792-1803University of California Press (1995). This is a fascinating study of the construction of Beethoven's genius.

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Erving Goffman The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life Anchor Books, 1959.

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I have a standing interest in symbolic interaction. But since this perspective has never to my knowledge been mentioned on LitNet, I have not mentioned it either. The Journal Symbolic Interaction which started in 1977 is a good introduction. Erving Goffman (see preceding post) is a good introduction. I have several books on this. Some are listed below.

[Dreamwoven]

Joseph Gusfield Symbolic Crusade: status politics and the American Temperance Movement (1963)
Craig MacAndrew and Robert Edgerton Drunken Comportment: a social experiment Aldine (1969)

The two below are classics in participant observation studies from the Chicago School of symbolic interaction:
William Foote Whyte Street Corner Society: the social structure of an Italian slum (University of Chicago Press (1943).
Paul Goalby Cressey The Taxi-Dance Hall(1932)

[Dreamwoven]

There are also two books on the sociology of science - prior to the work by Mike Mulkay on this:

Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar Laboratory Life: the social construction of scientific facts 1979

Bruno Latour Science in Action 1987

[Dreamwoven]

Finally, let us not forget theory in symbolic Interactionist research.

Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann The Social Construction of Reality: a treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge 1966

[Dreamwoven]

An excellent book on ethnographic research is by Robert Prus Symbolic Interaction and Ethnographic Research: intersubjectivity and the study of Human Lived Experience 1996. Full of examples and from a background of interactionist studies and Chicago School sociology.

[Dreamwoven]

Robert Prus is the only sociologist I know who has committed himself to teaching potential symbolic interactionists to undertake research in the study of human lived experience.

[Dreamwoven]

Mary Lorenz Dietz, Robert Prus and William Shaffir (eds) Doing Everyday Life: ethnography as human lived experience (1994) is a rich and varied collection of studies of human lived experience ranging from being in a gang of bikies to being a ballet dancer.

[Dreamwoven]

Eric Hobsbawm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hobsbawm Primitive Rebels: studies in archaic forms of Social Movements in the 19th and 20th Centuries (1959). One of my favourite studies. Even Hungary had its equivelent of Robin Hood who stole from the rich and gave to the poor, and a chocolate pastry was named after him - Rigo Jancsi, Rigo being his surname and so coming first as is traditional in Hungarian (Jancsi is the popular first name, referring to Janos.)

[Danik 2016]

At last an author I know. I have found the "Age of..."historical books a good read and useful for construing the background in literary research.
I also read by Erving Goffman Asylums, a major work about imprisonment:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asylums_(book)

[Dreamwoven]

Yes, I read Asylums way back, but yesterday I ordered a copy for myself.

Hobsbawm wrote some good books. Primitive Rebels is worth reading, too. Another good author to read is E. P. Thompson. Britain has produced several good marxist writers in the past.

[Danik 2016]

I read them mostly, when still at the university. Foucault is also a very original author but I suppose you know him already. Anyway:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault

[Dreamwoven]

Yes, I have heard of Foucault, but didn't realise he had such a broad perspective. Even on mental illness, sexual identities and social constructionism! I must read some of his work...Thanks for that tip Danik.

[Dreamwoven]

I also have the 4-volume work (in English) The Emigrants by Vilhelm Moberg. This is a great series (see links below). Read it a couple of times. Beautifully researched. The Swedish emigrations to America mostly ended up in Minnesota Territory in the 1850s or later. The state of Minnesota has even today many Swedish names. The state is rather like Sweden with its forests and numerous lakes. Karl Oscar and his wife Kristina were some of the earliest settlers.

Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilhelm_Moberg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emigrants_(novel_series)

[Dreamwoven]

Another book I have is E. P. Thompson (editor) Warwick University Ltd: industry, management and the Universities Penguin, 1970.

I've always thought of this as the last gasp of 1960s radicalism. The National Deviancy Symposium was longer lasting, continuing until the mid-1970s. Critical criminology is, of course still with us, but its heyday is over.

Links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Deviancy_Symposium
https://posthegemony.wordpress.com/2013/06/24/warwick-university-ltd/

[Dreamwoven]

I recently learned that Raphael Samuel has passed away: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael_Samuel. He was only 62, a sad loss. I have a copy of his edited book Peoples History and Socialist Theory (1981), and read it again. He left the Communist Party when Hungary was invaded by the USSR.

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_World_of_British_Communism.

Another interesting book on my shelves is by Eric Hobsbawm "Primitive Rebels". See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_bandit

[Danik 2016]

I love Eric Hobsbawm´s history books, The Age of ...

I´ll take a better look at Raphael Samuel. May he rest in peace.

[Dreamwoven]

Another favourite of mine is "Old English Villages" Clay Perry, Anne Gore and Lawrence Fleming, catches the spirit of rural England beautifully. I particularly liked Puddletown, Dorset, and the way the enclosure movement in England was opposed by the poor. The Tollpuddle Martyrs were transported to Tasmania for daring to ask for an average wage for their work. It was the start of the trade union movement.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolpuddle_Martyrs

http://www.tolpuddlemartyrs.org.uk/story

http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Tolpuddle-Martyrs/

http://www.thedorsetpage.com/history/Tolpuddle_Martyrs/tolpuddle_martyrs.htm

Made quite an impact in Australia, too.

[kiz_paws]

Another book that I have now read twice is The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer (Vintage Books, 2011). It reminded me how much of the Hungarian language I remember from my childhood. The book is long, some 750 pages, but I love the way the Budapest railway stations are named: Keleti (dawn), and Nyugati (sunset or resting), and a street called "Forget-me-not". Set in the late 1930s and early 1940s mainly in Paris and Hungary it describes very well the trials and tribulations of her Jewish relatives. She was helped in writing it by her grand uncle and aunt. Its the kind of book that I will return to read again.
I hope that my local library has this book. Sounds good.
I have read this Thread with interest. I like to see what other folks have on their bookshelf. :)

[Dreamwoven]

Glad to learn this, Kiz paws. The war years was when as a small child I learned Hungarian by hearing it spoken around me. I treasure that knowledge today.

[kiz_paws]

Glad to learn this, Kiz paws. The war years was when as a small child I learned Hungarian by hearing it spoken around me. I treasure that knowledge today.Indeed. :)

Have you read the book For Those I Loved, by Martin Gray? It is a wonderful read about one man's struggle with life during the war (and my saying this is very broad, as I do not want to spoil the read by saying anything more). I read this book from the library, and enjoyed it so much, as it is incredibly well written, that I went out and purchased it. Have read this book twice and will probably read it again.

[Dreamwoven]

No, I have not read it, but thanks for the tip, I have checked it out and will order a copy for myself.

[kiz_paws]

Perhaps your local library has a copy?
In any case, once you have read this book, let me know your thoughts. In my humble opinion, this book was the greatest that I've ever read.

[Dreamwoven]

Still trying to find a copy. In Sweden it isn't so easy.

[Danik 2016]

Here are some links for buying used books on line:
alibris: https://www.alibris.com

Bookfinder:https://www.bookfinder.com

Bookfinder shows the prices in the currency of one´s country

[Dreamwoven]

Thanks, Danik. I know of Alibris, Adlibris and Bokus.com, but BookFinder is a new one to me.

[Danik 2016]

I have found and bought several older academic works with the help of Bookfinder.

[Dreamwoven]

That's promising!

[Dreamwoven]

My Jewish aunt, Joci, took me to central Europe several times to visit relatives. We went by couchette whose seats could easily be converted into a sleeping area of 3 beds, one above the other, on each side. We went first of all to Vienna, which was the departure point for Central Europe. From there we took a train to Bratislava to visit my father's relatives, making room for visits to Prague, and less often to Budapest, Hungary (to visit my maternal relatives). Hungary and Czechoslovakia were then communist countries.

As a result I have three books by a Viennese author who really loved Vienna: Frederic Morton: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Morton. the first three books on his list (Thunder Twilight in the Serbian assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand, A Nervous Splendour, where the heir to the throne commits suicide, and The Rothschilds: a family portrait).

Frederic Moreton lived in New York and in his 91st year travelled back to his beloved Vienna. He fled Europe, returning to Vienna in 2015, where he died. My Fascination with Vienna was greatly enhanced by the writing of this remarkable author. Forever Street is also one of his books, in novel form, depicting life in a Viennese street. One day I may buy myself a copy.

[Dreamwoven]

There is much more to all this. My jewish father was born a sickly child, to the woman his father was married to. He only knew Hungarian because he was a Slovak, which at the time was part of Czechoslovakia. His mother died in childbirth, and so my paternal grandfather quickly wed a woman in milk, who became my father's mother. She disliked my father. He was born in the early 20th Century with scarlet fever - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlet_fever - which led to him having a weak heart. It meant that when he was called up the Austro-Hungarian Government turned him down for military service. Just as well, given the horrendous fatality rate in the trenches. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visegr%C3%A1d_Group.

My father heard the two women who were cycling near the place where he was working in the fields, talking Hungarian to each other, and so they met. He use to listen to the New Year concert from Vienna, and I listened with him.

So the books by Frederic Morton threw new light for me on the Habsburg Empire, in addition to having travelled there with my father's maternal sister in my early teens.

[Dreamwoven]

Some useful references:

The Visegrad Group is a pressure group in the EU. It has strong views on minimising immigrants from outside Europe. It is rarely mentioned in the bourgeois press, at least in Sweden. Now I wonder if the new Austrian Government will join them, we will no doubt see soon enough. Admiral Horthy acted as Regent in the event that the Hungarian Crown of St Stephen had a claimant to this part of the Dual Monarchy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miklós_Horthy - none appeared but Horthy strove to act in unison with the principle of a Regent. He thereby preserved much that was positive, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dohány_Street_Synagogue.

[Dreamwoven]

There is much more to all this. My jewish father was born a sickly child, to the woman his father was married to. He only knew Hungarian because he was a Slovak, which at the time was part of Czechoslovakia. His mother died in childbirth, and so my paternal grandfather quickly wed a woman in milk, who became my father's mother. She disliked my father. He was born in the early 20th Century with scarlet fever - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlet_fever - which led to him having a weak heart. It meant that when he was called up the Austro-Hungarian Government turned him down for military service. Just as well, given the horrendous fatality rate in the trenches.

My father heard the two women who were cycling near the place where he was working in the fields, talking Hungarian to each other, and so they met. He use to listen to the New Year concert from Vienna, and I listened with him.

So the books by Frederic Morton threw new light for me on the Habsburg Empire, in addition to having travelled there with my father's maternal sister in my early teens.

Mothers-in-law had a difficult relationship with their children-in-law who are not their biological children. This was common in the 1930s but is now all but forgotten. The 1930s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White_and_the_Seven_Dwarfs_(1937_film) deals with this very well, especially where the mother-in-law dislikes the daughter-in-law who is named Cinderella, indicating her lowly household chores. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinderella_(1950_film). These tend to be romanticised and play down the lowly status of the daughter-in-law, as well as the reasons for it.

[Dreamwoven]

I have many books on or about Aberdeen in Scotland where I lived for the last 5 years of the 1960s. But this one is a favourite: Written by an architect, Edward Meldrum and filled with his own hand-drawn sketches of major landmarks in Aberdeen, quite a few long gone in rebuilding in the city. Aberdeen of Old (second edition, 1987). This has much building that is called Scottish Baronial: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_baronial_architecture.

Here are the first two verses of a poem called "Vandalism" by A. M. Davidson. I dread to think how the language will be preserved not!

"O fat hiv ye deen t' my ain native toun,
for A'm fairly lost noo fan I stravaig aroon
and look for the streets far I played a wee loon,
O fat hiv ye deen t' my ain native toun?

Far's Strawberry Bank? Far's the auld Wallace Tour?
Fat's come owre the Denburn, ablow and abeen?
An, dammit, ye've flitted oor Tarnty Ha',
rugged up the New Market and muckt up the Green."

[Dreamwoven]

Three books - all in the same series of Penguin Books - by John Prebble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Prebble#Fire_and_Sword_Trilogy- sit on my bookshelves but are not often read. The Fire and Sword Trilogy cover the years when the Scottish Highlands were stripped of its population and left bare and desolate, sheep replacing the people. I read them again very recently and it still makes me angry. At the time I was a postgraduate student at Aberdeen university in the late 1960s. Prebble had migrated to Canada and met several Scots who had been evicted to make way for sheep-runs, and he learned a lot about the sacrifices they made at home and emigrating to Canada. I can recommend the series for anyone interested in Scottish history.

[Dreamwoven]

Three books - all in the same series of Penguin Books - by John Prebble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Prebble#Fire_and_Sword_Trilogy- sit on my bookshelves but are not often read. The Fire and Sword Trilogy cover the years when the Scottish Highlands were stripped of its population and left bare and desolate, sheep replacing the people. I read them again very recently and it still makes me angry. At the time I was a postgraduate student at Aberdeen university in the late 1960s. Prebble had migrated to Canada and met several Scots who had been evicted to make way for sheep-runs, and he learned a lot about the sacrifices they made at home and emigrating to Canada. I can recommend the series for anyone interested in Scottish history.

[Dreamwoven]

The fire and sword trilogy got a lot of its inspiration from talking to Canadians who were transported - often against their wills - to the New World.

[Dreamwoven]

I have a large selection of books about Aberdeen. One of them, The Trial of Patrick Sellar. The Tragedy of Highland Evictions (1962, Routledge and Kegan Paul) starts with an Introduction by Eric Linklater: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Linklater. He is scathingly critical of the debasement of Highland fashions. It begins as follows:

"The most incongruous spectacle, and one of the most popular, in contemporary Scotland during the tourist season is the competitive prancing of little girls in a travesty of Gaelic costume on wooden platforms as Highland Gatherings. The dress they wear - kilt and doublet and patterned hose, decorated with frills and laces and small tin medals - is a garish parody of male attire, and the airs to which they dance are the pipe-tunes of a people to whom war was a natural exercise and dancing the social display of a martial spirit. Most of these girls come from Lowland towns, whose inhabitants until fairly recently, hated, feared, and avoided their Highland neighbours, and finally defeated them. To those who see the history of Scotland as something more than a noisy charade, the appearance of the dancing children is lubricous and their performance vulgar; but by the majority, not only of foreign visitors but of their fellow Scots, they are often applauded. And in the applause there is a strange discordance." (p. xi)

[Dreamwoven]

The Visegrad Group now has its own wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visegrád_Group

[Dreamwoven]

Another of my books is written by Ian Carter. It is a history of Farm Life in Northeast Scotland (1840-1914) and subtitled "The poor man's country". At the time he was a colleague of mine at Kings College, Aberdeen. As a result he became Professor of Sociology at Auckland University, New Zealand. He is still there today, though now Professor Emeritus and like me long retired. He is the only case of a researcher who used the brilliant historical records in Kings College's unique collection of history books, and statistical and photographic records. I send him my best regards on the other side of the world. He did something that I only dreamed of, admiring the John Prebble "Fire and Sword Trilogy" that we all read those many decades ago...

[Dreamwoven]

This will have to be my last post on the Litnet forums, as I keep getting logged out. Must be something to do with the new MacBook Pro that I bought to replace my old MacBook Pro Retina, that crashed. I have enjoyed being here and send my best regards to everyone.

Thank you and goodbye!

[Danik 2016]

I hope not.
I sent Scheherazade a PM on this.
I hope you are still reading us.

[Scheherazade]

This will have to be my last post on the Litnet forums, as I keep getting logged out. Must be something to do with the new MacBook Pro that I bought to replace my old MacBook Pro Retina, that crashed. I have enjoyed being here and send my best regards to everyone.

Thank you and goodbye!Hi, Dreamwoven,

Did you try ticking the "Remember Me" option as you login? This often resolves the timing out problems.

[Dreamwoven]

Yes, I did that, and today, Tuesday, I am still logged in. I will continue my posts on Ian Carter's work.

[Scheherazade]

I am glad that seems to be working and you are still posting. Please don't hesitate to PM me if the problem persists in future.

[Dreamwoven]

Will do!

[Dreamwoven]

Ian Carter's book was written using the library of Kings College, Aberdeen. Most people moved away once they managed to find a job at a time of scarce employment during the Thatcher years. Alan Davis moved to a job in Sydney, Australia, on the strength of his books on the the new perspective, Symbolic Interaction, where he ended up with Stuart Rees, Head of Sociology at Sydney. Alan died of a heart attack in post at Sydney in the early 1990s. I got a job in Adelaide sociology, from 1965 to 1969, so without knowing it, we overlapped for a brief time.

But before that I spent a year in Minnesota starting a Ph.D. All of this can be read on my blog "My Symbolic Interaction": https://socialconstr.wordpress.com. See also https://socialconstr.wordpress.com/2014/08/13/alan-g-davis-1941-1996-an-appreciation/

[Dreamwoven]

My year at Minnesota was almost farcical. I joined the only course open to anyone wanting to do a degree in symbolic interaction, one of a number of introductory courses, including much on quantitative measures. I had investigated the department by reading up on its staff, many of whom were well-known interactionists, so I was confident there would be more courses in the second year.

But there were no more courses on the perspectives, so I left, saying that I was disappointed as I had come to Minnesota to do a doctoral degree in Symbolic Interaction. I left at the end of my one year. I was quite simply not interested in doing a doctorate in quantitative methods, and made his clear.

See https://socialconstr.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/minnesota-1971-1972-2/.

I had always believed that one day symbolic interaction would become a major perspective, and the first issue of the journal was published in 1977. This fits with the changes at Minnesota made under the new chairman of Sociology John Clark, in 1972/3.

[Dreamwoven]

I had bought a book edited by Raphael Samuel. It was in the History Workshop series:

Raphael Samuel: Peoples History and Socialist Theory (1981). I was very saddened to learn this remarkable man died off cancer at the age of 62. A tremendous loss. But he lives on in the form of the History Workshop Journal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_Workshop_Journal.

See also http://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/resources/articles/HWJ.html

[Danik 2016]

My year at Minnesota was almost farcical. I joined the only course open to anyone wanting to do a degree in symbolic interaction, one of a number of introductory courses, including much on quantitative measures. I had investigated the department by reading up on its staff, many of whom were well-known interactionists, so I was confident there would be more courses in the second year.

But there were no more courses on the perspectives, so I left, saying that I was disappointed as I had come to Minnesota to do a doctoral degree in Symbolic Interaction. I left at the end of my one year. I was quite simply not interested in doing a doctorate in quantitative methods, and made his clear.

See https://socialconstr.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/minnesota-1971-1972-2/.

I had always believed that one day symbolic interaction would become a major perspective, and the first issue of the journal was published in 1977. This fits with the changes at Minnesota made under the new chairman of Sociology John Clark, in 1972/3.

Unfortunately quantitative methods were largely applied in the so called Human Sciences in the 20 C as I had ocasion to learn. I don´t know if they still are applied.

[Dreamwoven]

Ian Carter ends his discussion in Farm Life in Northeast Scotland 1840 to 1914 with the following comment:

“Rural sociologists must assert, as radical Liberals did a century ago, that the big questions about rural Britain have to do with political economy, with the social relations of men [and women] in production. This means choosing the groups whose interests we wish to support.
Type to enter text
Type to enter text We must stop thinking of our subject as a purely technical enterprise, blindly pursuing ends that are defined by others for their own purpose ends that are none of our business. It is time that British rural sociology recognised something that has become a truism in development studies, that in social life there are no such things as technical solutions, there are only political solutions.” (p.184)

[Dreamwoven]

I knew a Pole when I was at Aberystwyth, Teodor Shanin - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teodor_Shanin, who had written a doctoral thesis on the Russian peasantry, he said if I learn the Russian language I could read his thesis. So I spent a year at Aberystwyth studying Russian, but the moved to Aberdeen and became interested in symbolic interactionism, so the whole project with Teodor was forgotten.

Peasant Studies became Teodor's specialism. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasant#Peasant_Studies - was a subject that I would have done if I had learned Russian, but it was a difficult language to learn, so I abandoned it before leaving Wales.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2002/sep/10/highereducation.academicexperts

Ian Carter became the expert himself writing his book on Farm Life in Northeast Scotland: the poor man's country, on the survival of the peasant class in Scotland.

Strange twists in fortune!!

[Dreamwoven]

I bought a book on the History Workshop Series edited by Raphael Samuel: People's History and Socialist Theory. If you like the work of Raphael Samuel - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael_Samuel - you will be glad to know that the history workshop publications are available in the form of a journal: The History Workshop Journal: https://academic.oup.com/hwj/pages/virtual_issues

[Dreamwoven]

The 1960s was a decade when I was in my 20s. It was a time of expanding horizons and maturity. The 1950's was in a sense a preparation for that, a part of my childhood. In the early 1950s I was a fan of Roy Rogers, and had a picture of him and his horse, Trigger. This was also part of the western era in Britain, Hopalong Cassidy and a host of other western heroes, who names I have long since forgotten. Early popular jazz especially Elvis Presley. Star Trek, and other film TV programmes. I remember the early TV we had at home which was enlarged by a thick magnifying mirror filled with water in front of the screen. You really needed to watch TV from directly in front of it. The 1950s shaded into the 1960s when I went to university at Leicester and in the second half of that decade the explosion of pop music, with the Beatles and Rolling Stones, Dylan, and a host of other stars.

[Dreamwoven]

The 1960s and early 1970s was an era dominated by critical social problems, especially the National Deviancy Conference: https://kenplummer.com/2013/02/08/inspirations-the-national-deviancy-conference/ held at York where I had to hire a car to get to from London. I went to two sessions.

I have several books on this, including the one by Stan Cohen Folk Devils and Moral Panics: the creation of the mods and rockers. I also have the volumes of Jock Young's trilogy and several other pieces.

"In July 1968 a few young sociologists met to discuss their disillusionment with criminology and the orthodoxies of sociological approaches to it. Subsequently, termly conferences were organised at the University of York between September 1998 and 1973 attracting some 1,300 people.( A list of all the papers at the first twelve conferences can be found in Ian Taylor and Laurie Taylor’s Politics and Deviance (1973). These were the conferences of young radicals: youthful, exhuberant, fun loving and intellectually alive. (One critic- Sir Leon Radzinowicz, Director of the Cambridge Institute of Criminology -called them ‘naughty schoolboys’).Everything was under challenge. A radical deconstruction was in the air: this was the intellectual moment which claimed the need for decriminalization (Schur), decarceration (Goffman, Barton), deprofessionalization (Illich), de-labelling (Becker), decatgeorisation…… It was the time to celebrate ‘Outsiders’( Becker), ‘Crimes without victims’ (Schur) and Becoming Deviant (Matza). It was the moment of the anti-psychiatry movement of Laing, Szasz and Scheff." From the Ken Plummer website (link above).

[Dreamwoven]

The deviance symposia were originally a purely British phenomenon, though it drew on U.S. literature in the symbolic interactionist tradition and continues today with more instances. See https://inet.smu.edu.sg/sites/courses/Documents/Outlines/UGRD/1420/SOCG221%20Sociological%20Theories%20of%20Crime%20a nd%20Deviance_Nafis%20Hanif.pdf See also this website: http://critcrim.org.

[Dreamwoven]

Here I want to consider something that Jock Young wrote in his last trilogy volume: The Criminological Imagination (2011). The title is based on a short book by C. Wright Mills The Sociological Imagination (1959), A well-known and challenging piece of writing.

[Dreamwoven]

Besides The Sociological Imagination, which I bought from a student stand when we were in Adelaide for 5 years, I have two other books by Mills on my bookshelves White Collar and The Marxists.

Another interesting book is The Power Elite and Listen, Yankee, on the Cuban Revolution. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1051835.Listen_Yankee

[Dreamwoven]

Below I have copied the key paragraph in Mills' thought.

"Do not allow public issues as they are officially formulated, or troubles as they are privately felt, to determine the problems that you take up for study. Above all, do not give up your moral and political autonomy by accepting in somebody else's terms the illiberal practicality of the bureaucratic ethos or the liberal practicality of the moral scatter. Know that many personal troubles cannot be solved merely as troubles, but must be understood in terms of public issues—and in terms of the problems of history-making. Know that the human meaning of public issues must be revealed by relating them to personal troubles—and to the problems of the individual life. Know that the problems of social science, when adequately formulated, must include both troubles and issues, both biography and history, and the range of their intricate relations. Within that range the life of the individual and the making of societies occur; and within that range the sociological imagination has its chance to make a difference in the quality of human life in our time." (C. Wright Mills The Sociological Imagination (1959)

[Dreamwoven]

Something else I now remember of those days when I first read The Sociological Imagination was his advice to read the notes and apply the Appendix "On Intellectual Craftsmanship". This appendix is full of useful advice to the social science student of everyday life. He advises us "to keep a journal" where we write down our thoughts of each book or article we read. I have done this and always found it invaluable.

[Dreamwoven]

Back to The Criminological Imagination by Jock Young, the entire book is based in C. Wright Mills work. He calls it the Criminological Imagination, because he assumes that Mills´ work in this applies to all disciplines, which of course is right, so the same logic applies.

Young dismisses the false exactitude of so many statistical surveys:

"One wonders - 30,818 gangs? Why not 30,819 or indeed 30,820! And as for 846,428 gang members, the mind boggles at the precision." (Young, 2011 p. 192)

But one of the strong points of his analysis is his thorough reading of the symbolic interactionist literature:

"The decade 1955-1965 was a time of exceptional creativity in American sociology of deviance. The names alone, Becker, Cicourel, Cohen, Cloward, Erikson, Gusfield, Matsa, Scheff, Sykes, to mention just a few, jog the mind and convey the intensity of the period."(Young, 2011, p.201)

[Dreamwoven]

One of my books that reflects my interest in the social problems literature derives from the time when the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_the_Study_of_Social_Problems -. was the only place where social problems were discussed in the early days. Its first present was Ernest Burgess, and Herbert Blumer was its third. Founded in 1951, it's journal, Social Problems, was a natural home for my interests. Of course, I never went to any of its conferences, they were all held in the USA.

But in recent years its working group on theory has been inactive, and eventually I decided to leave the society. I have one book from that time by Donileen Loseke "Thinking about Social Problems: an introduction to constructionist perspectives (1999).

[Dreamwoven]

I have three books on the Second World War by Anthony Beevor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Beevor: Stalingrad, Berlin,: the downfall, 1945 and the Spanish Civil War. I am re-reading Stalingrad, and it makes riveting reading. The first casualty of war is the truth. Governments clamp down on this before anything else.

Stalingrad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalingrad_(book)
Berlin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin:_The_Downfall_1945
Spanish Civil War: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Civil_War.

The last of these was very disappointing, but then civil war is not like conventional warfare, it is much more messy, lacking clear borders and equally unclear outcomes. How Beevor managed to write such a thick book is beyond me. In despair, I abandoned trying to read it.

[Dreamwoven]

Anthony Beevor's book on the Downfall of Berlin 1945 makes grim reading. No-one had a clue what was going on: "Berlin's population in early April stood at anything between 3 and 3.5 million people, including around 120,000 infants. When General Reymann raised the problem of feeling these children at a meeting in the Reich Chancellery bunker, Hitler stared at him. 'There are no children of that age left in Berlin", he said. Reymann finally understood that his supreme commander had no contact with human reality." (p.177)

[Dreamwoven]

At that time the Americans were at the Elbe and the Soviets were approaching Berlin from the East.

[Dreamwoven]

I want to take a closer look at the battle for Stalingrad. But this will be published tomorrow.

[Dreamwoven]

The starting point of this is to ask what were the objectives in invading Russia? The country extends far to the east, way beyond Europe, and finally ending on the northern Pacific coast. It is only necessary to look at a map of Russia to understand the implications of trying to occupy it. Even the Ural Mountains have been a popular investment area, sometimes precisely on the grounds of making Russia less vulnerable to invasions from Europe. But this bigger question seems never to have been addressed by either Germany or Russia at the time of Stalingrad. We do not even know what Hitler's view was.

For some further reading on this see http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/hitler_russia_invasion_01.shtml

[Dreamwoven]

The starting point of this is to ask what were the objectives in invading Russia? The country extends far to the east, way beyond Europe, and finally ending on the northern Pacific coast. It is only necessary to look at a map of Russia to understand the implications of trying to occupy it. Even the Ural Mountains have been a popular investment area, sometimes precisely on the grounds of making Russia less vulnerable to invasions from Europe. But this bigger question seems never to have been addressed by either Germany or Russia at the time of Stalingrad. We do not even know what Hitler's view was.

For some further reading on this see http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/hitler_russia_invasion_01.shtml

[Dreamwoven]

I have 3 books by Elly Griffiths, this is the first "The house at Sea's end" - the setting for most of her books is the coast of Norfolk, England. This is a Ruth Galloway Mystery, I enjoy her open style of writing and the circumstances of her work. Ruth Galloway is a single mother and a Lecturer in Archeology at the University of North Norfolk This one is about skeletons washed ashore that turn out to be WW2 bodies, German prisoners of war.

[Dreamwoven]

The second Ruth Galloway Mystery is called "The Ghost Fields" (2015) and centres on a WW2 aircraft that crashed in a field, killing the pilot. To say "this book "centres on" is somewhat misleading. It is more accurately described as "forming the background" of the book. Those of child-bearing age will relate to this very well.

[Dreamwoven]

The third book by Elly Griffiths The Chalk Pit, has a section on Underground Societies, people who live in some of our most affluent cities, but they are driven to live below the earth. People who - for whatever reason - aren't welcome on the surface - homeless people, the addicts, HIV-positive. There are subterranean communities all over the world - in catacombs, sewers and abandoned metros. The tunnel people in Las Vegas, the Empire of the Dead in Paris, the Rat Tribe in Beijing. A lot of them are proper societies with electricity and phone lines - even churches and restaurants sometimes. The Rat Tribe in Beijing are mostly migrant workers, some of them brought in to build for the Olympics (The Chalk Pit, p.197).

[Dreamwoven]

I have another book on Stonehaven by Archibald Watt "Highways and Byways Round Stonehaven". Kerstin and I went to Stonehaven and the ruins of Dunnottar Castle just before going to Minnesota where we spent a year. The book is a fascinating history of the region and brings back fine memories of Kincardineshire.

[Dreamwoven]

Charles H. Hapgood Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings: evidence of advanced civilisations in the Ice Age. I first read this book in 1966, but bought my own copy in 2014. My parents lived in Northwest London in 1966, and I went to the University library in the West End, placing orders to consult old Portolano maps so I should have them available on the day.

Since then I have kept up my interest in old maps.

[Dreamwoven]

Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings depicts the Atlantic Ocean with Europe and North Africa on the East and the Americas on the west (from Cuba down to Antarctica). The southern tip of South America is connected to Antarctica by a land bridge, and there is no evidence of ice. The seas show illustrations of sailing ships. This map was found in Constantinople after its fall to the Ottoman turks in 1453, and the map is known as the Piri Re'is Map: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piri_Reis_map.

[Dreamwoven]

It is believed that Christopher Columbus may have in part based his judgement of the veracity of the reality of the Americas on this map.

[Dreamwoven]

Portolan charts are known for their accuracy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portolan_chart

"Portolan or portulan charts are navigational maps based on compass directions and estimated distances observed by the pilots at sea. They were first made in the 13th century in Italy, and later in Spain and Portugal, with later 15th and 16th century charts noted for their cartographic accuracy.[1] With the advent of widespread competition among seagoing nations during the Age of Discovery, Portugal and Spain considered such maps to be state secrets. The English and Dutch, relative newcomers, found the description of Atlantic and Indian coastlines extremely valuable for their raiding, and later trading, ships. The word portolan comes from the Italian adjective portolano, meaning "related to ports or harbors", or "a collection of sailing directions".[1]"

[Danik 2016]

Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings depicts the Atlantic Ocean with Europe and North Africa on the East and the Americas on the west (from Cuba down to Antarctica). The southern tip of South America is connected to Antarctica by a land bridge, and there is no evidence of ice. The seas show illustrations of sailing ships. This map was found in Constantinople after its fall to the Ottoman turks in 1453, and the map is known as the Piri Re'is Map: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piri_Reis_map.

If I read it rightly there is the characteristic outline of the coast of Brazil. And that is phantastic because Brazil was officially discovered
in 1500, only thirteen years before.

[Dreamwoven]

We tend to interpret everything in terms of what we know. The focus is often on the anglo-saxon view of the world. Ask a Spaniard what the discovery of Mexico means, quite a different answer from an American.

[Dreamwoven]

The latest book I have is the modern classic by Flora Thompson Lark Rise to Candleford (Penguin Books, 1945). Beautifully written:

"All times are times of transition; but the eighteen-eighties were so in a special sense for the world was at the beginning of a new era, the era of machinery and scientific discovery. Values and conditions of life were changing everywhere. Even to simple country people the change was apparent. The railways had brought distant parts of the country nearer; newspapers were coming into every home; machinery was superseding hand labour, even on the farms to some extent; food bought at shops, much of it from distant countries, was replacing the home-made and home-grown. Horizons were widening; a stranger from a village five miles away was no longer looked upon as "a furriner" (pp.68-69).

[Danik 2016]

I´m not sure if that book is on your shelf, but:

"How narrow women have grown lately! They looked like stalks of corn, straight, shining, identical. And men’s faces were as bare as the palm of one’s hand. The dryness of the atmosphere brought out the colour in everything and seemed to stiffen the muscles of the cheeks. It was harder to cry now. Water was hot in two seconds. Ivy had perished or been scraped off houses. Vegetables were less fertile; families were much smaller. Curtains and covers had been frizzled up and the walls were bare so that new brilliantly coloured pictures of real things like streets, umbrellas, apples, were hung in frames, or painted upon the wood. There was something definite and distinct about the age, which reminded her of the eighteenth century, except that there was a distraction, a desperation — as she was thinking this, the immensely long tunnel in which she seemed to have been travelling for hundreds of years widened; the light poured in; her thoughts became mysteriously tightened and strung up as if a piano tuner had put his key in her back and stretched the nerves very taut; at the same time her hearing quickened; she could hear every whisper and crackle in the room so that the clock ticking on the mantelpiece beat like a hammer. And so for some seconds the light went on becoming brighter and brighter, and she saw everything more and more clearly and the clock ticked louder and louder until there was a terrific explosion right in her ear. Orlando leapt as if she had been violently struck on the head. Ten times she was struck. In fact it was ten o’clock in the morning. It was the eleventh of October. It was 1928. It was the present moment."

Orlando, Virginia Woolf https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91o/chapter6.html

[Dreamwoven]

No, that is not one of mine.

[Dreamwoven]

"The baby carriage was made of black wickerwork, something like an old-fashioned bath-chair in shape, running on three wheels and pushed from behind. ("pram" was a word of the future - perambulator or milkman's hand-cart). It wobbled and creaked and rattled over the stones, for rubber tyres were not yet invented and its springs, if springs it had, were of the most primitive kind. Yet it was one of the most cherished of the family possessions, for there was only one other baby carriage in the hamlet, the up-to-date bassinet which the young wife at then had recently purchased. The other mothers carried their babies on one arm, tightly-rolled in shawls, with only the face showing." (Lark Rise to Candleford p.34)

[Dreamwoven]

I have always sympathised with small countries where independence is valued. Perhaps this comes from the years I lived in Wales (Aberystwyth) and Scotland (Aberdeen). Ireland is also special as it is divided into two parts (Northern Ireland - Protestant, and the rest - the bulk of Ireland being Catholic. I also lived in Scotland for 5 years in the late 1960s, where I became in favour of Scottish independence. All this became controversial when Brexit was being negotiated. On which see http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-44123716.

One of my books is by Edith Pargeter on Wales. She calls Lord Llwelwyn "the first and only true Prince of Wales" Edith Pargeter has also written a series of books on Cadfael under the name Ellis Peters. I have read all of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadfael

[Dreamwoven]

The book I have on Wales is a quartette "The Brothers of Gwynnedd"

[Dreamwoven]

I have several books by Jan Gillou: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Guillou

Three of these are fictionalised accounts of the Knights Templar, g
together called The Crusades Trilogy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades_trilogy.

There is also one book on witchcraft "Häxornas Försvarvare: en historiskt reportage" This is not in Wikipedia, but I found it in his own company -Piratförlaget: http://www.piratforlaget.se/bocker/haxornas-forsvarare-ett-historiskt-reportage/

[Dreamwoven]

I have several books by Jan Gillou: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Guillou

Three of these are fictionalised accounts of the Knights Templar, g
together called The Crusades Trilogy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades_trilogy.

There is also one book on witchcraft "Häxornas Försvarvare: en historiskt reportage" This is not in Wikipedia, but I found it in his own company -Piratförlaget: http://www.piratforlaget.se/bocker/haxornas-forsvarare-ett-historiskt-reportage/

[Dreamwoven]

I have a classic history of Stockholm, in 5 volumes by Per Anders Fogelström. It is in Swedish and traces the rise of the city of Stockholm from its small and poor origins to today's bustling metropolis. This transformation took place in just 100 years (from 1860 to 1968, and is well worth reading.

[Dreamwoven]

Finally, I have a series of 4 books (in English) about the settlement of Swedish emigrants to America by Vilhelm Moberg:
The Emigrants
Unto a Good Land
The Settlers
Last Letter Home

Swedish emigrants to America settled in what would become the state of Minnesota, a state where the geography and climate were rather like that in Sweden. Moberg envisaged "America" as being, (in Swedish) "mer rika" (more rich!). Kerstin and I went there on 1-year visas at the start of my career to do a Ph.D. but only stayed for 1 year. I returned to Sweden when I learned there would no symbolic interactionist courses after the first year. Even today there are many who have Swedish surnames: Theodore Anderson, George Bohnstedt were both professors. Don Martindale wrote a book about this disastrous period in Minnesota Sociology "The Romance of a Profession: a case history in the sociology of Sociology".Much later I wrote a wordpress blog, where I put all my symbolic interactionist work. In its time it was my most successful blog.

[cacian]

I am just wondering what drove swedish to emigrate to the states?
and whatever happened to the swedish language whilst they settled there?

[Dreamwoven]

Poverty, and a series of bad harvests. All in the mid-1800.

[Pompey Bum]

I am just wondering what drove swedish to emigrate to the states?
and whatever happened to the swedish language whilst they settled there?

As DW said, many Swedes settled in the northern Midwest, especially in Minnesota--a stunningly beautifully state but a too cold for many of us. There are still many Swedes there. They speak English, but sometimes with the least trace of an accent. The Coen Brothers movie Fargo is about this community. Some of the actors do the accent rather well (Ya? Ya!). There were plenty of Swedes in other areas, too.

[cacian]

As DW said, many Swedes settled in the northern Midwest, especially in Minnesota--a stunningly beautifully state but a too cold for many of us. There are still many Swedes there. They speak English, but sometimes with the least trace of an accent. The Coen Brothers movie Fargo is about this community. Some of the actors do the accent rather well (Ya? Ya!). There were plenty of Swedes in other areas, too.

thanks for that Pompey it just makes think that language tend to disappear as a result of migration. :)

[cacian]

As DW said, many Swedes settled in the northern Midwest, especially in Minnesota--a stunningly beautifully state but a too cold for many of us. There are still many Swedes there. They speak English, but sometimes with the least trace of an accent. The Coen Brothers movie Fargo is about this community. Some of the actors do the accent rather well (Ya? Ya!). There were plenty of Swedes in other areas, too.

thanks for that Pompey it just makes think that language tend to disappear as a result of migration. :)
I guess if we all migrated here and there we would eventually come to lose one thing and that is language.
languages suffer as a result.

[Dreamwoven]

I would add to that: a very stony ground in Sweden. And by "stoney" I mean huge rocks buried in the soil, brought down during the last ice age from the Arctic. They needed to be dug up to make the soil tillable. Very exhausting work, it is a long-term project to bring the soil into cultivation. They would find that the Minnesotan soil was clear of these rocks down to some 3 feet at least, so excellent tilling soil.