Become What You Are

Book Description

"Life exists only at this very moment, and in this moment it is infinite and eternal. For the present moment is infinitely small; before we can measure it, it has gone, and yet it exists forever. . . . You may believe yourself out of harmony with life and its eternal Now; but you cannot be, for you are life and exist Now."—from Become What You Are In this collection of writings, including nine new chapters never before available in book form, Watts displays the intelligence, playfulness of thought, and simplicity of language that has made him so perennially popular as an interpreter of Eastern thought for Westerners. He draws on a variety of religious traditions, and covers topics such as the challenge of seeing one's life "just as it is," the Taoist approach to harmonious living, the limits of language in the face of ineffable spiritual truth, and the psychological symbolism of Christian thought.

Customer Reviews:

ANOTHER GREAT ALAN WATTS BOOK.......2007-08-02

I can recommend any of Alan's books. This one I bought recently. It's definitely another great book that reflects Alan's philosophy. He was a master and a spiritual entertainer. Check out his CDs as well for example
Om: The Sound of Hinduism

A gloss over of Alan Watts.......2007-03-27

For those who have lisened to Alan Watts on tape this book is a reliable reference to many of the diverse ideas that he had. Some of the ideas are given a little more depth which may or may not increase your understanding of what he was trying to present. Because the book is short essays it can be read over and over with a different understanding each time or only reinforcing what you already think about the man and his suggestions.

What Else Can We Be?.......2004-09-16

This is a collection of essays written by Watts before he came to the United States in 1938 along with articles he wrote during the 50's. The overall theme is about discovering, or realizing, who we are. No one explains our true natures better than Watts. I have been a big fan of his ever since my days growing up in the 60's in Northern California. I listened to his radio program out of Berkeley a few times and even met him once. Though I really didn't know what the heck he was talking about it was clear to me that he was very wise and sincere. I was more into girls than God at the time. I digress. Sorry ladies, I am not blaming any of you for my wasted youth. I just wish I had used a little more of my youthful energy a little more wisely.

Classically educated in Occidental Orthodoxy Mr. Watts went in search of further understanding and found it in the Wisdom of the East. He found no fundamental argument between Jesus and Buddha. They were both big on meditation. Their message was essentially the same. As the Buddha stated in the Dhammapada, "The path is not somewhere in the sky, It is in our hearts". As Jesus stated in Luke 17:20-21, "The Kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you." As the Buddha and Jesus well knew, to experience ultimate reality can make one feel like a child again, everything becomes new, born again. Such a mystical experience can also make one feel as though everyday reality is little more than a dream, like one has woke up from a dream of being separate from the rest of reality. The Father and I are a unitive one. Reality is whole and it has no second. More than one, but less than two, synergetic.

Watts had found that Oriental religious philosophy, in particular Taoism, more freely shared this mystical interconnectedness of man and God with the common man than do most Western religious traditions. Alan then made it his life's mission to spread the good news. That we are part and parcel of a singularly unitive totality. That we are essential. That our predominant Western conception of self is a case of mistaken identity. That we think we are separate from the rest of reality. Thus cut off from our source we face an alien world alone. Witness the universality in the West of existential dread. The truth shall set you free. We are not alone, nor are we strangers in a strange land. "In my Father's house are many rooms". John 14:2. This is more than semantics. We are not alone because every whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Reality is synergetic. We are home for we come out of the world and not into it. No man is an island, he is a peninsula. It is an intuitive thing. Though we cannot know God, I AM THAT I AM, we can experience God. "Be still, and know that I am God". Psalm 46:10. Meditate.

Read this collection of essays and start seeing what Watts saw. That we are created in the image of God. That we are a microcosm of the macrocosm. That it takes a godlike being to realize God. That the Kingdom of God is a family and we are all members.

I also whole heartedly recommend Mr. Watt's last book "Tao: The Watercourse Way". It is about living a balanced life, a natural/supernatural way of living. I found the Chapter on the Chinese Language to be one of the most enlightening essays I have ever read. Read it and you will know why a picture can indeed be worth a thousand words.

We are all centered in the Tao- we have but to realize it........2004-08-13

For such a small book there is an incredible quantity of wisdom here to contemplate. The essays included in this collection are all from Watt's work in the 50's. It becomes clear that this man was not merely ahead of his time- he was beyond time.

The Paradox of Self-Denial: This first essay sets the tone for the collection. It is framed around the intuition that "He who loseth his soul shall find it." It is pointed out that the seeker that consciously tries to transcend the world, and his own conscious ego, shall never do so. It is only when ego has truly, deeply, experienced defeat, failure, and despair that true transcendence is ever reached. And perhaps not even then, for it comes from beyond the self and is far from predictable.

Become What You Are: This essay deals with the concept of the enlightened man as a mirror. This involves grasping nothing/ refusing nothing and receiving all/ keeping nothing. This is detachment from future and past to live in an eternal Now. We are all centered in the infinite Tao- we have all but to recognize it.

The Finger and the Moon: One of his most famous essays, it deals with not mistaking religion for the ultimate goal of religion. Once you cross the river, don't try to carry the raft with you on your back.

Importance: Deals with the fact that the importance of things has nothing to do with their permanence or duration. Value is in quality and not quantity. The tiniest part of the universe contains that universe in microcosm- and fully participates in the whole.

Tao and Wu-Wei: Watts addressed the concept of Wu-Wei long before it became fashionable. This is what works and moves in harmony with nature without having to be forced. Your heart does this- so would your mind if you let it. You just have to get out of your own way. A life, or a society, totally balled-up in rigid self-control and self-consciousness must eventually fail. Wu-Wei means to live with your center outside of this trap.

Lightness of Touch: Deals with not taking the world of Maya, or yourself, too seriously. The real world is the play of the spirit.

Birds in the Sky: Describes the path of the sage as paradoxically both in harmony with the world, as well as detached from it (in the world but not of it.) Points out that almost all western thought rebels against this as pessimism and nihilism.

Walking on the Wheel: Examines the ideal life as 1) stillness, calm, and immovability, and as 2) dancing with the flow of life. Resolves the seeming conflict as a question of relative perception.

The Language of Metaphysical Experience: Examines how modern logical philosophy (scientific empiricism and logical positism) simply ignores metaphysical and spiritual issues as "meaningless." Points out that such philosophers have no idea what reality is. Shows how materialists are ego driven types who are driven to order and control- and ignore anything that doesn't fit.

Good Intentions: Shows how good intentions in and of themselves are not necessarily good- if they are based on ignorance, laziness, incompetence, or misplaced desire.

Birth of the Divine Son: Once again, long before it was popular Watts recognized that the symbolism of the Christ long preceded Christianity. The Universal power of the symbol of Spirit entering into union with matter is examined. Also dealt with is the concept of the Second Birth- of the potential for unregenerate man becoming Christ.

Even the cover of this book is a spiritual lesson, with its mirror at the center of the mandala, that we may glimpse our Self at the center of creation.

What I have become.......2004-05-25

is a result of this kind of writing and insight, from someone I consider a mentor to this day, who helped me to deepen my understanding of Christianity as I was recovering from a period of Jesus enthusiasm in the mid-70s. I am only now reading this particular work by Watts, but it just confirms for me how helpful were his words for me then, and for so many others who came of age during the 60s and early 70s.

What Caused the Pueblo Revolt of 1680? (Historians at Work)

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put out the safety cones: historians at work
Interesting but a Little Racist
History Through Different Windows

What Caused the Pueblo Revolt of 1680? (Historians at Work)
David J. Weber
Manufacturer: Bedford/St. Martin's
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 031219174X

Customer Reviews:

put out the safety cones: historians at work.......2006-06-03

This is precisely the type of history book advocated by James Loewen, the author of "Lies My Teacher Told Me."

Take five scholars, all discussing the same event, and end up with five quite different interpretations of that event. The editors did a great job of introducing each of the scholar's views, pointing out bones of contention, backgrounding the source material. This is how history is supposed to be taught!

I think one reviewer may have mischaracterized this book as racist. To say that only the views of the Spanish were presented, when in fact the only source material available is from the Spanish colonials, is to confuse the viewpoint of the historian with the viewpoint of the 17th century government of Spain.

I'm thinking about buying the whole series of Historians at Work if they are all this interesting.

Interesting but a Little Racist.......2006-01-31

This book had a lot of great information about how the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 affected the Spanish. It tells how they felt, what they did, what they thought, where they went. It even tells about what they thought the American Indians were thinking and feeling at the time. There are even passages citing American Indian quotations that were written by totally biased Spaniards from the time of the revolt! So, if you're interested in hearing just one side of a very important event, this is the perfect book. I think this really would be a good book if it were coupled with another book that attempted to show the other side.

History Through Different Windows.......2000-04-26

Weber has put together a selection of informative essays by different authors, all dealing with the famed Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Given that the (for a time successful) uprising took place, the question for students of history is the standard one: Why?

As the essays in this book point out, there is no one answer to that question. There are, instead, many answers, and additional questions.

In history, it's not so much a case of arriving at the "truth." Rather, it's the journey of discovery that really counts. The essays Weber has collected run the gamut, from turgid academic writing and sniping to refreshingly clearly-stated prose. His introduction is masterly, the bibliographic references invaluable, and the overall effect one of having learned just how complex and diverse the causes of an effect can be.

Book Description

In Oh What a Slaughter, Larry McMurtry has written a unique, brilliant, and searing history of the bloody massacres that marked -- and marred -- the settling of the American West in the nineteenth century, and which still provoke immense controversy today.

Here are the true stories of the West's most terrible massacres -- Sacramento River, Mountain Meadows, Sand Creek, Marias River, Camp Grant, and Wounded Knee, among others. These massacres involved Americans killing Indians, but also Indians killing Americans, and, in the case of the hugely controversial Mountain Meadows Massacre in 1857, Mormons slaughtering a party of American settlers, including women and children.

McMurtry's evocative descriptions of these events recall their full horror, and the deep, constant apprehension and dread endured by both pioneers and Indians. By modern standards the death tolls were often small -- Custer's famous defeat at Little Big Horn in 1876 was the only encounter to involve more than two hundred dead -- yet in the thinly populated West of that time, the violent extinction of a hundred people had a colossal impact on all sides. Though the perpetrators often went unpunished, many guilty and traumatized men felt compelled to tell and retell the horrors they had committed. From letters and diaries, McMurtry has created a moving and swiftly paced narrative, as memorable in its way as such classics as Evan S. Connell's Son of the Morning Star and Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.

In Larry McMurtry's own words:

"I have visited all but one of these famous massacre sites -- the Sacramento River massacre of 1846 is so forgotten that its site near the northern California village of Vina can only be approximated. It is no surprise to report that none of the sites are exactly pleasant places to be, though the Camp Grant site north of Tucson does have a pretty community college nearby. In general, the taint that followed the terror still lingers and is still powerful enough to affect locals who happen to live nearby. None of the massacres were effectively covered up, though the Sacramento River massacre was overlooked for a very long time.

"But the lesson, if it is a lesson, is that blood -- in time, and, often, not that much time -- will out. In case after case the dead have managed to assert a surprising potency.

"The deep, constant apprehension, which neither the pioneers nor the Indians escaped, has, it seems to me, been too seldom factored in by historians of the settlement era, though certainly it saturates the diary-literature of the pioneers, particularly the diary-literature produced by frontier women, who were, of course, the likeliest candidates for rapine and kidnap."

Customer Reviews:

A Narrow Audience.......2007-07-23

Mr. McMurtry has written an extended essay/reflection on "pre-emptive stikes", the moral code we live by as a nation, and then tied it briefly to our current policies in IRAQ and the aftermath of 9/11. His subject is several famous, and not so famous massacres in western lore, and his primary purpose is to draw moral conclusions that connect us to today's events. He doesn't really go into any real explaination of the massacres, so you will need to have know about them from other sources in order to understand his message. I read this book just after completing Hampton Sides' "Blood and Thunder", which gave me the background of most of the massacres mentioned. Had I read these books in reverse order, I wouldn't have understood what Mr. McMurty was trying to say at all.

Genocide in the Old West.......2006-12-01

Genocide in the Old West

Most have heard the expression "the only good Indian is a dead Indian". Some have heard "you must get the nits if you want to get the lice" the policy used to justify they massacre of women and children. Few may realize the extent to which the United States practiced and encouraged genocide against Native Americans during the 19th century and how closely our current conflict in Iraq parallels United States policy during the Indian Wars.

This book is no historical treatise but it is a powerful illustration of the conflict between cultures and the consequences of might making right based upon the six largest massacres in the American West. We learn that the killing of Native Americans was not a crime until 1824 and then was only made a crime because politicians feared the unfettered massacre of Indians by whites, much as one my shoot coyotes or whites, might incite an uprising of Native Americans which the government could not control.

McMurtry succinctly sets the tone and feeling of the settlers, ranchers, Indian Agents, Military and Native Americans in this timeless tragedy. He notes white perpetrators of massacres were not brought to justice. He also notes the insanity of inflicting death and destruction on a group because one or two members may have misbehaved.

Historians of this subject will find his reports simplistic and shallow. But the overview and analysis he provides of the motivating forces, political justifications and sheer horror of that period provide an invaluable insight to the dangers of inflicting our form of government and morals on a people used to living in a different way.

The book contains an excellent Bibliography and intriguing references to historical literature that all of us would love to read. This book is well worth reading for anyone interested in Native Americans, American Foreign Policy as implemented by force, or the American West.

Fascinating Writing.......2006-07-14

Some have argued about the length of this book. I think fine writing is fine writing whether we are talking about a poem of 4 lines or a novel of 1,000 pages.

I am really enjoying this book, and would have been happy to read 500 more pages if they were of the quality of this short book. However, in the summer, I appreciate the brevity of this book since I might not have tackled it if it were long.

What do I like? I find many insightful comments although as McMurtry clearly points out: we will never truly find out exactly what happened in these massacres but who could really know the truth about a massacre since each one is terribly messy and each one causes intense, complicated emotional responses in the people who were massacred and the people who did the butchering.

If he talks about spin, how the winners tried to appear heroic and downplay the nastiness of their deeds, we should not be surprised because recent history is being besieged by spin doctors.

Just as he says and as we can see if we think of the Sudan, Bosnia, Rwanda, etc., no massacre stands in isolation but is a part of a history of animosity between the two groups. A book which attempted to give the history of the struggles and misunderstandings which led up to these massacres and which later followed as consequences flowing from reactions to these massacres would be very long indeed.

Two other things in this book which I enjoyed were the wonderful photos and the interesting little-known details about some of the colorful characters involved in these little histories.

Who will forget the portrait of Kit Carson as a horribly efficient Indian-killing machine who felt very sad at the end of his life since he understood the Indians better than anyone else? Also, I find the whole history of the quick extermination of the Indians which lived in California (including the very-little-known Maidu, Wintu and Yana Tribes) to be revealing.

A short but worthy addition.......2006-06-15

Adopting a conversational tone McMurtry briefly (161 pages) explores six 'big massacres' of the Old West: Sacramento River, Mountain Meadows, Sand Creek, Marias River, Camp Grant, and Wounded Knee. He also briefly considers the Fetterman and Custer defeats.

McMurtry's treatment is even-handed. That even-handedness allows his observation of the essential fairness of General Crook, which the Indian leaders acknowledged, as demonstrated by his observation that the Sioux should take the money for the Black Hills because the whites were surely going to take them. Evenhandedness also required inclusion of the observation by Red Cloud that the whites had made many promises but only kept one: "They said they would take our land and they took it."

He develops the idea that the ever present 'apprehension' of violence was felt both by whites and Indians and that the apprehension all too often led to the actuality. Moreover, in general white frontiersmen wanted the Indians' land and were going to have it. Whites had the numbers and the technology. In all of the massacres with the exception of Wounded Knee the whites set out with the purpose of killing all the Indians they could lay hands on. As McMurtry relates civilized society often quickly disowned these deeds as 'simple murder'.

Mountain Meadows stands out an as exception in that Mormons led some Paiutes to attack and virtually wipe out a white wagon train.

The stories of these massacres are told in more detail elsewhere, but McMurtry's book is an interesting addition to the Western library that considers all of them within the confines of one short work.

Oh what a Slaughter.......2006-06-06

Contrary to the dust jacket this slight 160 page non-fiction book by well-known novelist Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove) is neither unique nor brilliant. It is a small rendering of six or seven Indian massacres, with little detail and even less historical context. Aside from allowing the author the opportunity to insert his own otherwise irrelevant political opinions on current events, for example, at one point comparing Plains Indians detained on reservations to "Afghans imprisoned" by President Bush (for terrorist activities) the book serves no real purpose for the reader. It doesn't really describe the topic in any real fashion. I concur with the reviewer who thought it seemed like a bunch of research notes pinned together and published as a book.

In the final analysis one must ask the question "what does this book add to the literature?" The unfortunate answer is "little to nothing". The author should stick to writing novels. Libraries are filled with books that no one reads.

Yanomami: The Fierce Controversy and What We Can Learn from It (California Series in Public Anthropology)

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By far the most important book on the controversy

Yanomami: The Fierce Controversy and What We Can Learn from It (California Series in Public Anthropology)
Rob Borofsky
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0520244044

Book Description

Yanomami raises questions central to the field of anthropology--questions concerning the practice of fieldwork, the production of knowledge, and anthropology's intellectual and ethical vision of itself. Using the Yanomami controversy--one of anthropology's most famous and explosive imbroglios--as its starting point, this book draws readers into not only reflecting on but refashioning the very heart and soul of the discipline. It is both the most up-to-date and thorough public discussion of the Yanomami controversy available and an innovative and searching assessment of the current state of anthropology.
The Yanomami controversy came to public attention through the publication of Patrick Tierney's best-selling book, Darkness in El Dorado, in which he accuses James Neel, a prominent geneticist who belonged to the National Academy of Sciences, as well as Napoleon Chagnon, whose introductory text on the Yanomami is perhaps the best-selling anthropological monograph of all time, of serious human rights violations. This book identifies the ethical dilemmas of the controversy and raises deeper, structural questions about the discipline. A portion of the book is devoted to a unique roundtable in which important scholars on different sides of the issues debate back and forth with each other. This format draws readers into deciding, for themselves, where they stand on the controversy's--and many of anthropology's--central concerns.

Customer Reviews:

By far the most important book on the controversy.......2005-01-24

In 2000 a controversy exploded around numerous, diverse, and very serious allegations about violations of professional ethics and abuses of human rights made in a book by investigative journalist Patrick Tierney, Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon. The present book edited by Dr. Robert Borofsky critically examines the fallout from Tierney's book. This second book is by far the most thorough, penetrating, balanced, and fair assessment of the controversy which is easily the ugliest scandal in the entire history of anthropology. The editor, and all of the six authors who contribute to a series of round table discussions and debates, are to be commended for their constructive approach to this controversy, unlike a few others elsewhere who persist in spreading as smoke screens misinformation, disinformation, and, just plain lies, even in various scientific journals, books, and organizations. Borofsky most perceptively and skillfully provides the broader background, context, implications, and ramifications regarding the controversy, including the AAA Task Force on Darkness in El Dorado and other reactions. Numerous very attractive and meaningful pedagogical devices are included so that the book can be most useful in many different courses on a wide range of topics. As promised on the back cover and elsewhere in the book, "All of the royalties from this book will be donated to helping the Yanomami improve their health care." This is an unprecedented, historic, and revolutionary book which may well contribute to some serious soul searching in anthropology and stimulate some positive transformations in the profession. This book should be read by every instructor and student in anthropology. For more background see http://www.publicanthropology.org.

Dr. Leslie E. Sponsel, Professor, Anthropology, University of Hawai`i

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The Legacy of Alan Watts
"...what we are seeking is already here."
Content Is OK, But Basic And Minimal

What Is Tao?
Alan W. Watts
Manufacturer: New World Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

In his later years, Alan Watts, noted author and respected authority on Zen and Eastern thought, turned his attention to Taoism. In this book, he draws on his own study and practice to give readers an overview of the concept of the Tao and guidance for experiencing it themselves. What Is Tao? explores the wisdom of understanding the way things are and letting life unfold without interference.

Customer Reviews:

The Legacy of Alan Watts.......2007-08-10

Alan Watts introduced a whole generation of Westerners to the ideas of Eastern Philosophy and Religion and this book is no exception

"...what we are seeking is already here.".......2002-02-09

I picked this book up at the library this afternoon because I wanted to read something simple over dinner. The dinner and the book complemented each other suitably: both were light and not filling. If one wants a treatise, look elsewhere. If one wants a very brief reminder of (or introduction to) eastern philosophy as presented by Alan Watts--someone who knows about eastern philosophy--this covers the plate nicely.

Content Is OK, But Basic And Minimal.......2001-03-03

This is a very little book, about enough for one chapter in a normal book. It's pleasant reading, unchallenging, accurate and interesting enough, with a few insights here or there, but there's not much to it. The material is mined posthumously from tapes of Watt's talks and from his apparently very extensive work on Taoism, but one wonders why the editors have come up with so little. The first two-thirds of the book might be useful to someone almost totally unacquainted with eastern thought. The last third gets into a demonstration of how to consult the I Ching and tries in a muddled sort of way to defend such consultation by contrasting western linear thought with the eastern organic approach. This tactic seems to me to confuse the issue rather than clarify. I've appreciated other works of Watts, but got nothing out of this one.

What's the Most Beautiful Thing You Know About Horses?

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What's the most beautiful thing you know about horses?

What's the Most Beautiful Thing You Know About Horses?
Richard Van Camp
Manufacturer: Children's Book Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

"I'm a stranger to horses and horses are strangers to me," admits the author/narrator at the beginning of this delightful tale of discovery. Members of the Dogrib nation from Canada, Van Camp's people use dogs instead of horses. Yet Van Camp has always been curious about horses. So he sets off on a playful search for "the most beautiful thing about horses," talking to family, friends, and even artist George Littlechild, who is a Plains Cree and knows something about horses. The answers Van Camp gets range from zany to profound: Horses can run sideways. Horses have secrets. Horses can always find their way home. Littlechild's bold and fanciful paintings perfectly capture Van Camp's playful vision of the world.

Customer Reviews:

What's the most beautiful thing you know about horses?.......2000-05-28

It's forty below in the Northwest Territories of Canada - so cold the ravens won't fly & Richard can't go outside. He decides to ask his family & friends the question that became the title to this book. Their answers bring a whole other world into light. Brilliantly illustrated by George Littlechild from the Plains Cree Nation, this humorous quest of a youngster's mind during a long winter's day, brings out the silly & the insightful. Makes a lovely gift!

Average customer rating:

Very misleading!

That's What She Said (A Midland Book)
Rayna Green
Manufacturer: Indiana University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

The poems and stories Rayna Green has chosen for this collection represent some of the most interesting and innovative writing in today's literature, yet their authors are for the most part unrecognized outside of feminist and Native American circles. That's What She Said provides an opportunity to become acquainted with a unique, exciting body of work.

Customer Reviews:

Very misleading!.......2006-03-17

I thought this was going to be a book full of jokes ending with the punchline, "That's what she said". Lame.

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One of the best!
Recipes taste just like what I eat in the restaurants
Very Cool
whats cooking indian
Proportions?

What's Cooking Indian (What's Cooking)
Shehzad Husain
Manufacturer: Thunder Bay Press (CA)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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What's Cooking: Mediterranean
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ASIN: 1571451528

Book Description

This comprehensive and inspirational cookbook features authentic cuisine from all over India. Chapters include meat and fish, vegetables, breads and grains, snacks and side dishes, and desserts. Balances exciting new ingredients and recipes with a wide selection of traditional favorites. Includes 120 easy-to-follow recipes, each illustrated with full-page color photographs. The What's Cooking series also includes: Baking, Barbecue, Chicken, Chocolate, Chinese, Italian, Low Fat, Pasta, and Vegetarian.

Customer Reviews:

One of the best!.......2006-01-17

My husband is Indian, so I cook Indian quite often. This cookbook has realistic, good, step-by-step recipes that can be done with a basic Indian set of ingredients. The food actually turns out how it is supposed to, and tastes great! If you only have 1 Indian Cookbook, this is the one I would recommend.

Recipes taste just like what I eat in the restaurants.......2005-01-04

This book is GREAT! I love Indian food and this book has several recipes that taste exactly the same as the best dishes I have had in restaurants. The pictures with each recipe are great because they act as a guide when you are cooking. Directions are generally simple which adds to the pleasure of using this book.

Very Cool.......2004-09-26

This book was very cool! The pictures show recipes step by step, which is very helpful, especially if this is your ist time cooking this cusine. It was easy to find the ingredients needes for most of the recipes. A+++

whats cooking indian.......2004-01-27

this is a very helpful book. the step by step pictures are something i could not find in any other indian cookbook. the directions are very simple to follow, and even the toughest recipes seem easy.

Proportions?.......2004-01-25

As a picture book this cookbook is great, but I have to question the portions of the ingredients, particularly the oil used. Many recipes start off calling for 1 1/4 CUPS of oil. If you take this verbatim, you end with oil soup, nothing like the photos.
Interestingly, if you view the preparation photos sometimes the pan looks almost dry (c.f. Chicken and Onions). Where's the 1 1/4 cups of oil? That certainly wasn't absorbed by 4 onions.
Similarly the amount of water also seems out of proportion. What do 1 1/4 cups oil mixed with 2 1/2 cups water look like with 2 lbs. of lamb cooked covered? Not what's on page 23.
Something is wrong here, but it does look great on the coffee table.
And as far as ingredients go, yes 95% of them are in the grocery store shelves but items like dried mango powder or black cumin seed or masoor dhal are probably not. You may have to do a little on-line shopping but then I would expect to.
I thought the following from the recipe for Chapati was amusing: After kneading the flour, salt and water for 7-10 minutes it says to let the dough "rise" for 15-20 minutes. Anyony see anything wrong with those instructions? There's no leavening. It won't "rise" in 15-20 years. It does taste good though.
Oh, and I would suggest a good oil separator.

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What the Aztecs Told Me
Krystyna Libura , Claudia Burr , and Maria Cristina Urrutia
Manufacturer: Groundwood Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0888993056

What You See in Clear Water: Indians, Whites, and a Battle Over Water in the American West

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Absorbing story of the struggle over who owns a river
An excellent case study of modern day water politics
A page-turner for anyone who loves The West
Beautifully human

What You See in Clear Water: Indians, Whites, and a Battle Over Water in the American West
Geoffrey O'Gara
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | World | History | Subjects | Books
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Road On Which We Came: A History of the Western Shoshone

ASIN: 0679735828
Release Date: 2002-08-13

Amazon.com

Seventeen years ago, journalist Geoffrey O'Gara left Washington, D.C., for northwest-central Wyoming to take a job covering environmental and resource issues concerning the Rocky Mountain region. He settled on the outskirts of the Wind River Indian Reservation, and over the years became deeply attached to the land, its people, and the story of "two cultures that have been arguing for 150 years over the same beloved country, and trying to find a way to share it."

What You See in Clear Water traces the history of the reservation from its beginnings, when the Shoshone Indians signed a treaty entitling them to a region encompassing some 44 million acres, to the present, when a century and a half of cuts and revisions have reduced the reservation to 5 percent of its original size. The Shoshones have been compelled to share what remains with their traditional enemies, the Arapahos, and today, both peoples grapple with the familiar hardships of reservation life: poverty, high suicide rates, persistent health issues, and the hostility and indifference of their non-Indian neighbors. For the past two decades, much of that hostility has centered on a highly charged clash between the Indians and whites over water rights to the river that runs through the reservation.

Although O'Gara's narrative is anchored by the ongoing debate over who will decide the fate of the Wind River--and the lives of the people who depend on it--the story deftly and compassionately illuminates the larger conflict that has persisted ever since the European settlers came to the Americas. "It is the unfinished struggle between Native Americans and the whites who surround and threaten to subsume them--once a military conflict, now a cultural war, complicated after all these years by the fact that neighbors, even antagonistic neighbors, know one another in intimate and sometimes affectionate ways." And it is O'Gara's deep concern and abiding affection for the Wind River's inhabitants that give his book its power and its grace. --Svenja Soldovieri

Book Description

For nearly a century, the Indians on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming have been battling their white farmer neighbors over the rights to the Wind River. What You See in Clear Water tells the story of this epic struggle, shedding light on the ongoing conflict over water rights in the American West, one of the most divisive and essential issues in America today.

While lawyers argued this landmark case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, Geoffrey O’Gara walked the banks of the river with the farmers, ranchers, biologists, and tribal elders who knew it intimately. Reading his account, we come to know the impoverished Shoshone and Arapaho tribes living on the Wind River Reservation, who believe that by treaty they control the water within the reservation. We also meet the farmers who have struggled for decades to scratch a living from the arid soil, and who want to divert the river water to irrigate their lands. O’Gara’s empathetic portrayal of life in the West today, the historical texture he brings to the land and its inhabitants, and the common humanity he finds between hostile neighbors on opposite sides of the river make What You See in Clear Water an unusually rich and rewarding book.

Customer Reviews:

Absorbing story of the struggle over who owns a river.......2003-04-14

Author Geoffrey O'Gara uses two decades of legal wrangles over control of the watershed on Wyoming's Wind River Reservation to explore two centuries of the collision between whites and Native Americans in the West. He accomplishes this feat in 300 pages by presenting the story as a human drama, focusing on the lives of individuals, living and dead, each with their own aspirations, history, and personality.

On the one hand are the white farmers who have settled legally within the boundaries of the reservation, "reclaiming" arid land with water provided by federally funded irrigation systems. On the other are the Indians of two tribes, Shoshone and Arapaho, historically antagonistic, reduced by over a century of conquest and together discovering a new-found strength to resist the will of state and federal governments. Among them are the college-educated, the young drop-outs, the old who still remember some of the lost Indian culture -- a wide range of people challenging easy ethnic stereotypes while at the same time representing the social ills that plague the reservations: poverty, unemployment, alcoholism. It is a Dickensian cast of characters.

A third group of key figures in O'Gara's story are the non-Indian professionals whose lives become entwined with reservation residents as the struggle over water rights heats up: engineers, hydrologists, conservationists, bureaucrats, lawyers and judges. The endless legal battles bring to mind Dickens' "Bleak House." Court decisions progressively yield more ground to the Indians, and appeals take the case against them all the way to the Supreme Court, yet after $50 million in legal fees, the issues remain unresolved.

While O'Gara makes an effort to maintain a journalist's objectivity throughout the book, his underlying sympathy is pretty clearly with the Indians, whom he gives the lion's share of the book to. Seeming to acquire privileged information in his interviews, he also points out that as a journalist he is often permitted to know what will best serve the Indians' purposes. He must still question its veracity and speculate about the rest, based on what seems to be extensive research in public records and historical accounts.

I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the American West, its history, cultures, geology, topography. The book is organized as a journey upstream, along the river's two main branches, into its headwaters in mountain glaciers. In fact, it's a good idea to have a map of Wyoming at hand for reference. As a companion to this book, I'd recommend Frank Clifford's "Backbone of the World," which explores some of this same subject matter and introduces readers to many other inhabitants up and down the Continental Divide.

An excellent case study of modern day water politics.......2001-06-17

The author manages to guide the reader though a conflicting set of water resource issues on the most legally confusing of all landscapes... the Wind River Reservation. Lined up across the court-room aisle sit the anglo farmers who tap the river for irrigation and the native residents wanting to restore the "in-stream flows" to support the trout fishery. Its a conflict the author uses to drive the story forward, but is only a single thread of a much richer story. The author interleaves the battle over water rights with the history of both the Shoshone and Arapaho and the opening of land within the reservation for white settlers. The author's love of the Wind River Reservation is evident in his first hand accounts describing the area's geography and natural history. This book succeeds by tying together the story's long and interconnected threads into a comprehensive picture of water politics.

A page-turner for anyone who loves The West.......2001-01-31

O'Gara has masterfully woven together past, present and future in this rich account of the Wind River Basin, its people and their struggle for self preservation. O'Gara's intimate knowlege of the social, political, economic, legal, and geologic issues that converge in this complex and fascinating story is as impressive as it is vast. He describes the land with skillful and clear-eyed detail, and he tells the story with a respect and compassion that must only have come from someone who has lived in and loved the West for many years.

Beautifully human.......2000-11-30

This book is rich with geographical details of Wyoming and history of the Shoshone and Arapahoe people. O'Gara skillfully and lovingly describes the Wind River Valley like a sculptor shapes his beloved work. He is an excellent storyteller. What I loved most was O'Gara's deep attention to human relations, personal histories, and character. He always tells the tale with the human in the center. He never proselytizes or places blame. He doesn't demonize or romanticize. Also, the Native Americans are depicted as people, not political images or symbols. It's easy and fun to read, yet never strays from reality. I loved reading it. I wish more stories about Native Americans were told so warmly and truthfully.

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