When Your Plastic Melts: The He-Said/She-Said Guide for Couples in Financial Trouble

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When a couple faces financial trouble or a financial crisis, it causes a tremendous strain on the relationship. When Your Plastic Melts is a unique book that reveals the impact financial hardships can have on a relationship and addresses ways to cope through presenting the male and female perspectives and couple solutions. The script-like, dialogue approach suggests ways to better understand your partner's viewpoint and enables couples to work together through their financial differences and difficulties. "Financial Measures" and "Emotional Treasures" are provided throughout the book. "Measures" are financial steps and "Treasures" are emotional tips that couples facing financially hard times can take to improve their status quo. Whether you are at the dawn of couple hood, newly wed, or have been together for many years, and difficult financial times have exploded or crept into your relationship, this book will address the roller coaster of issues that you might face, help you make adjustments, and strengthen your relationship.

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At a time when slavery was spreading and the country was steeped in racism, two white men and two black men overcame social barriers and mistrust to form a unique alliance that sought nothing less than the end of all evil. Drawing on the largest extant bi-racial correspondence in the Civil War era, John Stauffer braids together these men's struggles to reconcile ideals of justice with the reality of slavery and oppression. Who could imagine that Gerrit Smith, one of the richest men in the country, would give away his wealth to the poor and ally himself with Frederick Douglass, an ex-slave? And why would James McCune Smith, the most educated black man in the country, link arms with John Brown, a bankrupt entrepreneur, along with the others? Distinguished by their interracial bonds, they shared a millennialist vision of a new world where everyone was free and equal.

As the nation headed toward armed conflict, these men waged their own war by establishing model interracial communities, forming a new political party, and embracing violence. Their revolutionary ethos bridged the divide between the sacred and the profane, black and white, masculine and feminine, and civilization and savagery that had long girded western culture. In so doing, it embraced a malleable and "black-hearted" self that was capable of violent revolt against a slaveholding nation, in order to usher in a kingdom of God on earth. In tracing the rise and fall of their prophetic vision and alliance, Stauffer reveals how radical reform helped propel the nation toward war even as it strove to vanquish slavery and preserve the peace.

Customer Reviews:

Collective Biography at its Best.......2006-04-16

This collective biography of abolitionists Frederick Douglass, James McCune Smith, Gerrit Smith, and John Brown presents an elegant portrait of the varieties of antislavery sentiment in the United States prior to the Civil War. The four men, two black and two white, formed a de facto alliance--although they would not have recognized it as such--to end slavery and were willing to use violence to do so. In a scintillating narrative that provides both enjoyable reading and penetrating analysis, John Stauffer links the four together as opponents of slavery seeking to overcome the "black hearts of men" but also partaking of the "black hearts of murder."

Organized into topics, rather than chronologically, Stauffer pursues the "literary turn" to analyze the four abolitionists, their writings, and their changes over time. His chapters relate to how these individuals perceived images of race, religion, economics, politics, identity, and women. At some level the most interesting figure presented in this book, perhaps because I knew the least about him, was Gerrit Smith. Although virtually every history of abolitionism mentions him, Stauffer goes deeper to explain Smith's patrician background, his adoption of antislavery, and his vigorous campaign to end it that sometimes resulted in violence. He notes how Smith attempted to found a multiracial community in New York state, an endeavor clearly tied to the utopian experiments of the era. He participated in an 1851 effort to rescue slaves and supported John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. Shocked by the outcome of that raid, however, Smith then adopted white supremacism.

One of the central tenets of this book, and it is boldly stated, is that radical abolititionism led to the transformation of race as a concept in American history. This is an intriguing idea, but Stauffer does not pursue it with the diligence that might have been expected from an idea raised in the book's subtitle. What he does, again, is use Gerrit Smith's career as the bellwether for transformation. This includes a fascinating analysis of Smith's 1851 short story, "The Ruinous Visit to Monkeyville," in which Stauffer finds that Smith was somewhat ambivalent about the status of African Americans. This perspective fits well with another conception--this one of considerable durability--that such abolititionists as William Lloyd Garrison were not committed to equal rights for freed slaves. The abolitionists' racial paternalism was palpable, according to Stauffer. Some historians have sought to overturn this conception as not representative of the abolitionist cause, but clearly Stauffer still accepts the older idea.

Most interesting--and certainly worth serious but skeptical consideration--is Stauffer's assertion that the failure of abolitionists "to emphasize with blacks after Harper's Ferry foreshadowed the North's abandonment of freedman and women after Reconstruction" (p. 281). He bases this conclusion on his reading of Gerrit Smith, but there is a tenuous relationship at best and the author fails to make a convincing argument for this position. I find it a captivating idea, for it would explain much about the retreat from Reconstruction; I only wish the evidence supporting it were more thoroughly presented.

"The Black Hearts of Men" is a compelling book, elegantly written and boldly argued. It is appropriate to question some of the author's conceptions, but it is a very worthwhile book that requires serious consideration.

A BRILLIANT WORK.......2002-12-01

John Stuaffer has one of the finest minds and finest prose styles of any contemporary historian. This book is both brilliant and a wonderful read. It won the prestigious Frederick Douglass Prize "for the year's best non-fiction book on slavery, resistance and/or abolition, the most generous history prize in the field, and the most respected and coveted of the major awards for the study of the black experience" ... That fact alone should answer any comments of the book being deeply flawed by any less respected historian with his own religious ax to grind about John Brown. No one who buys and reads this book will be disappointed.

A Review from a religious biographer of John Brown.......2002-06-15

The Black Hearts of Men is a well-written and thoughtful study of four closely-associated anti-slavery figures. John Stauffer is an excellent writer, and he should be credited for taking a fair approach to Brown, free of the usual bias and thinly-veiled racial-political scorn that motivates so many white male writers on the subject.

Stauffer must also be credited for overcoming the difficulties of reading Gerrit Smith's (one of the four figures in the study) handwriting. He has also brought four men--two black and two white--together in an engaging study, something apropos of this age of diversity awareness, and something long overdue from the academy. The author introduces and reintroduces Frederick Douglass, James McCune Smith, Gerrit Smith, and John Brown in the context of partnered (or at least overlapping) struggle. He seeks to flesh out various aspects of their worldviews and interests, including their self-presentation (via daugerreotypes, a new photographic technology in the mid-19th century), their sympathy for women's and native rights, and other aspects.

Yet Stauffer's study is deeply flawed insofar as he attempts to yoke the four men in a similar style of religious belief---particularly insofar as John Brown is concerned. In fact, Stauffer's analysis of Brown as a religious figure is thin, generalized, and largely self-serving in its speculation.

In essence, Stauffer contends that John Brown, like his three friends, moved away from conventional religion. The author would have us believe that Brown repudiated his Puritan theology for some Perfectionist form of millennnialism. The problem with this thesis is that its author has ignored millennialism in its orthodox forms in Puritanism, and the fact that Brown was immersed in millennial belief from his childhood. The issue is not millennialism, as Stauffer would suggest, but the type of millennial viewpoint that Brown had. In fact, Brown's millennialism was Puritan and orthodox. Clever terms like "sacred self-sovereignty" notwithstanding, the author's soup is very watery and highly problematic. Unlike Gerrit Smith, John Brown in fact remained firmly based in his Puritan Calvinist theology, as his associates (like T. W. Higginson) recognized, even until the last.

There are other dangerous speculations that Stauffer employs to extend the religious portrait of Brown---sort of like painting with a broad brush, too broad to do justice to Brown's religious life. Certainly, Stauffer needs to look more closely at his sources, which he sometimes fudges on to make a point. He clearly does this in his strong suggestion that Brown was involved in a series of seances in Kansas in late 1857. If he had done his work more carefully, Stauffer would have seen that Brown was not at those occult practices. And if he understood Brown's religious life, he would not even have tried to put him there in the first place.

The Black Hearts of Men is welcomed as a study, much as thirsty man may receive a glass of water with gratitude. We need more works like this, and less like the typically biased narratives that have come from academia about John Brown. Yet this glass is only half full--or is that half-empty?

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The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race.(Book Review) : An article from: The Historian
Stanley Harrold
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000B9DVUG
Release Date: 2005-09-03

Book Description

This digital document is an article from The Historian, published by Thomson Gale on June 22, 2004. The length of the article is 558 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race.(Book Review)
Author: Stanley Harrold
Publication: The Historian (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2004
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 66 Issue: 2 Page: 372(2)

Article Type: Book Review

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The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race.(Book Review): An article from: Journal of Southern History

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The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race.(Book Review): An article from: Journal of Southern History
Lewis Perry
Manufacturer: Southern Historical Association
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B0008E0NXW
Release Date: 2005-07-31

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Journal of Southern History, published by Southern Historical Association on August 1, 2003. The length of the article is 665 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race.(Book Review)
Author: Lewis Perry
Publication: Journal of Southern History (Refereed)
Date: August 1, 2003
Publisher: Southern Historical Association
Volume: 69 Issue: 3 Page: 694(2)

Article Type: Book Review

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Book Description

Events of the new decade have encouraged democratic societies like ours to think more deeply about the kind of society we want to create and about how we can improve our efforts to do so. This issue focuses on some of the most interesting work being done in the American Communities Movement today and contains articles by leading practitioners on the promise heralded by convergence in tools, values, and practices. It examines the ideas that emerged from a series of dialogues on community reform organized by the National Civic League and the Coalition for Healthier Cities and Communities. Chapters provide models from active programs in community-level reform from a variety of cities and municipalities. The obstacles and opportunities encountered in a community improvement project are viewed through the lens of the Jacksonville Community Council Inc and their experiences. A new model for human service delivery, developed by the Human Service Planning Alliance in Des Moines, demonstrates that well-time and well-targeted social investments produce significant positive returns. It also provides a perspective on the ongoing debate over the changing role of government, the significance of the new public service, and the enduring importance of democratic values.

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Structural conditions are often the most serious and expensive area to correct, making this an important topic for potential homeowners. They are also among the most difficult for home inspectors to identify.

This comprehensive test carefully walks inspectors through challenging topics such as cracks, soil conditions, footings, and distinguishing solid masonry from masonry veneer walls.

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Siegfried Kracauer's biography of the composer Jacques Offenbach is a remarkable work of social and cultural history. First published in German in 1937 and in English translation in 1938, the book uses the life and work of Offenbach as a focal point for a broad and penetrating portrayal of Second Empire Paris. Offenbach's immensely popular operettas have long been seen as part of the larger historical amnesia and escapism that pervaded Paris in the aftermath of 1848. But Kracauer insists that Offenbach's productions must be understood as more than glittering distractions. The fantasy realms of such operettas as La Belle Hélène were as one with the unreality of Napoleon III's imperial masquerade, but they also made a mockery of the pomp and pretense surrounding the apparatuses of power. At the same time, Offenbach's dreamworlds were embedded with a layer of utopian content that can be seen as an indictment of the fraudulence and corruption of the times. This edition includes Kracauer's preface to the original German edition, translated into English for the first time, and a critical foreword by Gertrud Koch.

orpheus in paris, offenbach and the paris of his Time

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orpheus in paris, offenbach and the paris of his Time
S. Kracauer
Manufacturer: Alfred Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MCXMP6

Offenbach and the Paris of his time: With 24 illustrations in collotype

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Offenbach and the Paris of his time: With 24 illustrations in collotype
Siegfried Kracauer
Manufacturer: Constable
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0006AO15Y

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Orpheus in Paris: Offenbach and the Paris of His Time
Siegfried Kracauer
Manufacturer: Horizon Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0844300934

Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Time.(Book Review): An article from: Notes

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Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Time.(Book Review): An article from: Notes
Victor Fell Yellin
Manufacturer: Music Library Association, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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Book Description

This digital document is an article from Notes, published by Music Library Association, Inc. on December 1, 2003. The length of the article is 1266 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Time.(Book Review)
Author: Victor Fell Yellin
Publication: Notes (Refereed)
Date: December 1, 2003
Publisher: Music Library Association, Inc.
Volume: 60 Issue: 2 Page: 460(3)

Article Type: Book Review

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Offenbach and the Paris of His Time
Siegfried Kracauer , Gwenda David , and Eric Mosbacher
Manufacturer: University of Illinois Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

History & Criticism | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

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Book Description

Just as Jacques Offenbach exemplified the joie de vivre of mid-nineteenth-century Paris, Siegfried Kracauer's biography of the exuberant dandy, cello virtuoso, and Tales of Hoffman composer captures the extravagance of the carnivals, cafŽs, and boulevards Offenbach shared with his notable friends ƒmile Zola, Charles Baudelaire, and Richard Wagner, among others.

Offenbach launched his career at the Paris Conservatoire when he was just fourteen, performing with the OpŽra-Comique shortly thereafter. Moving on to compose a body of work from waltzes to operettas, including Orpheus in the Underworld and La vie parisienne,. he continually faced criticisms of his music and lavish lifestyle.

Kracauer's wide-ranging and astute cultural critique of Offenbach and mid-nineteenth-century Paris was first translated from the German and published in the United States in 1938. Revealing how the arts influenced one another and society, this enduring volume is a vivid portrait of a legendary time.

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Orpheus in Paris: Offenbach and the Paris of His Time
S. Kracauer
Manufacturer: Vienna House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000ICSQ1A

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Dakota Cross-Bearer is the story of Harold S. Jones, a Dakota Indian born in 1909 and raised on the Santee Reservation in Nebraska, who rose through the ranks of the Episcopal Church to become the first Native bishop of a Christian church. Jones’s biography sheds light on the importance of Christianity for the Dakotas and other Native peoples during the twentieth century. His story yields insights into the history of twentieth-century missionary activity among Native communities and illuminates instances of conflict and discrimination within the Episcopal Church, the processes of clerical training and testing, and the demands of constant relocation.

Customer Reviews:

Rich South Dakota history.......2007-09-22

This book is a wonderful for all who are inspired to serve their own churches, a biography of Bishop Harold Jones of South Dakota, the trials and trbulations of a man making a name for himself within the Episcopal church, still leaves a lasting impression on clergy that knew this wonderful man, a man who can wonderfully sing lakota hymns ( told to me by a priest i know, who knew him well) and preach the gospel with great reverence. Bishop Jones is still talk of the South Dakota Episcopal Diocese now and the future, a role model for all who takes compassion, people and God as a way of life.

An Eye-Opener for History Buffs and Christians.......2007-06-12

I am an Episcopalian Christian and a native of the state of Montana. As such, I was unable to finish "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" (Dee Brown) because of what is sometimes called white guilt. I did finish Cochran's book,"Dakota Cross Bearer." In fact, I could hardly put it down.

Some may prefer "Bury My Heart" over Mary Cochran's book, because of Brown's righteous and radical anger, absent from Cochran's voice.

Like Brown's account, this story speaks sorrowfully of the shameful history of betrayal of Native Americans, even by the church. It touched me deeply because it recounts the the open-mindedness of many Lakotah people toward the god of the Europeans who were displacing, impoverishing, and trying to stamp out the cultures of tribes throughout the west. While many missionaries in this account had benevolent intentions, the fruit of their labors was a mixed blessing at best.

Mary and her husband, The Rt. Rev. David Cochran (former bishop in the Dakotas) were entrusted with the story of the Lakotah people and prejudice in the church from Bishop Harold Jones' point of view. His lack of rancor in living through many insults and challenges is a powerful witness to the best in the Christian faith tradition, and even more so, the best in his tribal traditions. The picture of life on the Lakotah reservations during the early 20th century was fascinating. For example, Lakota women took the lead consistently in raising the funds necessary to start new churches. They had almost no money and were phenomenally ingenious!

I will never stop grieving what happened to the native peoples of the west as my people invaded their homeland. Bishop Jones' spirit will help me live with it.

Offers a view like no other.......2004-08-09

Dakota Cross-Bearer: The Life And World Of A Native American Bishop is the biography of Harold S. Jones, a Dakota Indian born in 1909, who joined the Episcopal Church and rose in its ranks to become the first Native American bishop of a Christian church. Offering key insights into twentieth-century missionary activity among Native American communities, revealing instances of dispute and discrimination amid the Episcopal Church, as well as the demands of clerical training and the relocation in service of the institution, Dakota Cross-Bearer offers a view like no other into the life of an unusual but no less dedicated man of the cloth and faith.

Let this book impact your life !!.......2001-10-04

What a find this book is!!! Having spent time this summer working on the Pine Ridge Reservation among the Lakota, I was thrilled to read a book containing not only historical facts, but "real life" detail. The joy, humor, sorrow, endurance, and faithfulness of this man of God (and those whose lives entwined with his) truly touched me. This book may be sucessfully used for historical, theological, sociological, or devotional purposes. Make sure to read and reread Fr. Deloria's (Tipi Sapa) testimony concerning Jesus, several times. It is the most compelling witness I have ever heard. It is no wonder that the little one, who listened to this wise man speak, grew up to be a Bishop.

Welcome documentation of missionary activities.......2001-03-25

Mary E. Cochran presents the story of Harold S. Jones, who in 1921 became the first American Indian bishop of the Episcopal Church. While much of Jones's narrative is in the third person, whenever possible editor Cochran allowed Jones to present his story "in his own words." Raymond A. Bucko and Martin Brokenleg's introduction does a good job of contextualizing Jones's story. The volume sheds considerable light on missionary activities among American Indians in the 20th century and offers welcome documentation of the complex interactions between Christian missionaries and Native peoples of the Plains. Choice, vol 28, no. 7 (March 2001).

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