As blog fodder, I realize that the odds of me desperately begging to be allowed to buy postage stamps has decreased dramatically, but we're actually very excited about this one. For one thing, my mother-in-law is playing too, choosing to study the geography of the Middle East. I admire her goal--trying to figure out where all these "stan" places actually are on the map, but as they change so frequently, it might be a bit more challenging and she might have to do it all over again in November.
Andy has chosen George Washington, and about 2 weeks ago this
showed up on our doorstep. 5 volumes of George Washington! Not only do I love old books--which I do--these were written by none other than John Marshall--arguably the most powerful Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Be still my little history-loving heart! Andy's mother sent them to us. Is coveting your husband's choice of subjects bad?It turns out, "Sociology" is rather a wide field--meaning quite literally the study of associates. So, anything involving more than one human being is fair game. Fun, but not exactly what I was after. I have reserved a sociology text book at the library which should be nice and dull. I would really have been in a bit of a sulky mood had I not remembered this
which I picked up several years ago. The title is The Making of Society, and on the cover page I found the words "An Outline of Sociology." Published in 1937, it is a collection of articles and essays attempting to trace the history of societal development. The fact that it was published during the Great Depression makes it even more interesting. As students, we were taught that the stock market crashed in 1929, and the Great Depression ended around 1941 when we entered WWII. That's a 12-year gap that is pretty thoroughly glossed over and there was a great deal of social unrest and could be considered the closest the US came to falling apart. With all the economic turmoil going on today, this should be rather fascinating.And in case I get through all of that before the month is over, I also found this
a nifty little volume called The Sex Problem in Modern Society. It is also a collection of essays, and was published in 1931. Whatever else was going on during the Great Depression, people were having sex and other people apparently didn't want them to do so. Lesson one in my study of sociology: Some things never change.
3 comments:
Can I play too? I've been looking for an excuse to stay in bed with my favourite books about Egyptology for ages, and besides, the weather is too bad to go out anyway (storm, rain, rainstorm - you name it, I got it. ;-) )
This is such a lovely idea. I teach and am forever learning something from the children in my class. (7 to 8 year olds have a refreshing view of the world.)However, its about time I found out about a length of cloth my daughter brought back from Africa. It has a text in Swahili on it and I really must find out what it means before I can use the cloth.
Thanks for prompting me.
Mandy:)
This month sounds very interesting, as do your 2 books. I loved sociology in college. I had a great professor.
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