Salvador or Twenty Years at Hull House

Salvador

Author: Joan Didion

"Terror is the given of the place." The place is El Salvador in 1982, at the ghastly height of its civil war. The writer is Joan Didion, who delivers an anatomy of that country's particular brand of terror–its mechanisms, rationales, and intimate relation to United States foreign policy.

As ash travels from battlefields to body dumps, interviews a puppet president, and considers the distinctly Salvadoran grammar of the verb "to disappear," Didion gives us a book that is germane to any country in which bloodshed has become a standard tool of politics.

Library Journal

Didion's 1983 volume captured "the terror and unpredictability permeating the El Salvadorean scene," said LJ's reviewer (LJ 3/1/83). Though political events in El Salvador are no longer in the public eye, this serves as a chronicle of a dark chapter in that country's tumultuous history.

Interesting book: Virginia in the Vanguard or Imperial Life in the Emerald City

Twenty Years at Hull-House

Author: Jane Addams

Jane Addams's narrative of life in an immigrant urban neighborhood provides students with an introduction to the issues of the Progressive era and the tenets of social activism. This new teaching edition reduces Addams's original text by about 35 percent, trimming illustrative detail to focus on the ideological underpinnings of the original work. The author sketches a brief biographical portrait of Addams, outlines the decisions and convictions that led her to found Hull-House, and includes a vivid picture of turn-of-the-century Chicago. Related documents include a description of life at Hull-House from the perspective of an immigrant who frequented it, an early review of Hull-House, and perspectives from other reformers.

Library Journal

The Turgenev standby gets a facelift for the 1990s, thanks to translator Katz, professor of Russian and director of the Center for Post-Soviet and East European Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. The growing popularity of new translations of Russian classics, such as the recent Notes from Underground (Classic Returns, LJ 7/93), should induce interest in Turgenev's work. For public and academic libraries.

Booknews

Jane Addams' narrative of life in an immigrant urban neighborhood provides students with an introduction to issues of the Progressive era and the tenets of social activism. This teaching edition reduces Addams' text by about 35 percent, to focus on ideological underpinnings of the original work. Includes a brief biographical portrait of Addams, and outlines her convictions that led her to found Hull House. Includes related documents, with discussion questions, plus a chronology and b&w photos. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknew.com)

What People Are Saying

Frances Perkins
"Should be framed and revealed as the beauty of the cultural life and spiritual value of the immigrant at the time when nothing would so despised and unconsidered an American life as the foreigner."

Marian Parks
"For the helpless, young and old, for the poor, the unlearned, the strangers, the despised, we have urged understanding and injustice."