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Passing the Time in Ballymenone Culture and History of an Ulster Community
'"Passing the Time in Ballymenone" is an extraordinarily rich and rewarding book. It is about night and day, talk and work, man and nature, history and folklore, text and context, truth and order, art and culture, life and death, the ponderable and imponderable, but above all it is about the effort of one man to find for himself and us the life's breath of the people of Ballymenone...It is certainly a remarkable tour de force. - Emmet Larkin, "New York Times Book Review". 'A catalog of themes and topics ...fails to reveal the glory of "Passing the Time": it is one of the most remarkable pieces of literature of the twentieth century. As such, the book merits the attention of all readers who care about great writing and important ideas' - Wilbur Zelinsky, "Geographical Review"."Passing the Time in Ballymenone" is the result of a decade of research on the life and art, the folklore, history, and common work of a rural community in Northern Ireland. Winner of the Chicago Folklore Prize and the Haney Prize in the Social Sciences, "Passing the Time in Ballymenone" was named a notable book of the year by the "New York Times". It is a classic in the fullest sense, reaching beyond folklore to the wide world of humanity.
832 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 1982
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March 17, 2019
“Passing the time” is not wasting time; rather, it is a vitally important way of spending meaningful time with others, of achieving and maintaining community. Such is part of the message of Henry Glassie’s 1982 ethnographic study Passing the Time in Ballymenone.
Glassie, a folklore professor at Indiana University, was singularly thorough in setting forth his ethnographic study of a rural community in Northern Ireland. His purpose, as the book’s subtitle indicates, is to elucidate the Culture and History of an Ulster Community.
Ballymenone is a name that Glassie gives to a rural community of County Fermanagh, close to Lough Erne. Settling in and living among the people of Ballymenone, Glassie focuses on rituals like the céilí: “Céilís are composed of neighbors who come out of the night to sit together and, as Hugh Nolan says, ‘pass a lock of hours.’ Talk begins with greetings – ‘How’s Tommy?’ ‘What news’ – and expands as the ‘ceiliers’ examine the community’s health” (p. 41). This ritual, like others that Glassie chronicles in his book, exists in this rural community for an eminently practical reason: “Agricultural workers need one another. They have to know who needs their help and whose help they can count on when troubles arise” (p. 41).
Glassie is patient, methodical, in collecting the testimony of key informants and relating it to his larger themes. As he puts it at one point, “I would have been less than a scholar, a traitor to my teachers, had I collected texts without listening to what people had to say” (p. 200).
His collecting of detail occurred during the mid-1970’s, during some of the worst periods of “the Troubles,” the civil conflict in Northern Ireland between predominantly Catholic nationalists and mainly Protestant unionists. While the Troubles are not at the center of Glassie’s study, the conflict is a presence in the book; one of the most evocative photographs in Passing the Time in Ballymenone is of a city street that looks perfectly ordinary until one notices the sign that reads “CONTROL ZONE – NO VEHICLE MAY BE LEFT UNATTENDED” – a clear response to the car bombs that were sometimes deployed as terrorist weapons in that grim time.
Glassie prefers to turn away from the high-profile violence of the Northern Ireland conflict that was then unfolding in places like Belfast and Derry/Londonderry, and to turn toward the life of Ballymenone: “I do not know Belfast, but I do know Ballymenone. People there are not religious fanatics….The District’s people hold a faith so deep, so sure and serene, that it rarely comes to their lips….Religious difference, they believe, is a matter more of birth than persuasion, and all forms of religion are valid” (p. 300).
Glassie prefers to focus on the rituals of everyday life: the architecture of homes and farmsteads, the implements that farmers use to work the land, the way in which different storytellers recount ancient stories of battles, the songs that people sing and the principles of effective singing. He takes pains in capturing the way his informants speak: “Och, it was a tedious -- coorse, when there was plenty of help in the country, they’d tackle anything in that line, but it was a tedious job” (p. 600).
To call Passing the Time at Ballymenone thorough, with its 718 pages of text, plus 117 pages of footnotes and appendices, would be almost an understatement. It is well-illustrated with photographs and maps, drawing of artifacts like clay pipes and hay knives, even sheet music for songs. Over his many visits to Ballymenone, Glassie gets to know many key informants, and with him we get to watch them grow older; some of them fall ill, and some of them pass on. There is sadness in that, and at the same time a sense that the traditions of life and culture that they embody will live on. Glassie’s Passing the Time in Ballymenone, which was named a New York Times book of the year for 1982, is truly a classic of ethnographic literature.
Glassie, a folklore professor at Indiana University, was singularly thorough in setting forth his ethnographic study of a rural community in Northern Ireland. His purpose, as the book’s subtitle indicates, is to elucidate the Culture and History of an Ulster Community.
Ballymenone is a name that Glassie gives to a rural community of County Fermanagh, close to Lough Erne. Settling in and living among the people of Ballymenone, Glassie focuses on rituals like the céilí: “Céilís are composed of neighbors who come out of the night to sit together and, as Hugh Nolan says, ‘pass a lock of hours.’ Talk begins with greetings – ‘How’s Tommy?’ ‘What news’ – and expands as the ‘ceiliers’ examine the community’s health” (p. 41). This ritual, like others that Glassie chronicles in his book, exists in this rural community for an eminently practical reason: “Agricultural workers need one another. They have to know who needs their help and whose help they can count on when troubles arise” (p. 41).
Glassie is patient, methodical, in collecting the testimony of key informants and relating it to his larger themes. As he puts it at one point, “I would have been less than a scholar, a traitor to my teachers, had I collected texts without listening to what people had to say” (p. 200).
His collecting of detail occurred during the mid-1970’s, during some of the worst periods of “the Troubles,” the civil conflict in Northern Ireland between predominantly Catholic nationalists and mainly Protestant unionists. While the Troubles are not at the center of Glassie’s study, the conflict is a presence in the book; one of the most evocative photographs in Passing the Time in Ballymenone is of a city street that looks perfectly ordinary until one notices the sign that reads “CONTROL ZONE – NO VEHICLE MAY BE LEFT UNATTENDED” – a clear response to the car bombs that were sometimes deployed as terrorist weapons in that grim time.
Glassie prefers to turn away from the high-profile violence of the Northern Ireland conflict that was then unfolding in places like Belfast and Derry/Londonderry, and to turn toward the life of Ballymenone: “I do not know Belfast, but I do know Ballymenone. People there are not religious fanatics….The District’s people hold a faith so deep, so sure and serene, that it rarely comes to their lips….Religious difference, they believe, is a matter more of birth than persuasion, and all forms of religion are valid” (p. 300).
Glassie prefers to focus on the rituals of everyday life: the architecture of homes and farmsteads, the implements that farmers use to work the land, the way in which different storytellers recount ancient stories of battles, the songs that people sing and the principles of effective singing. He takes pains in capturing the way his informants speak: “Och, it was a tedious -- coorse, when there was plenty of help in the country, they’d tackle anything in that line, but it was a tedious job” (p. 600).
To call Passing the Time at Ballymenone thorough, with its 718 pages of text, plus 117 pages of footnotes and appendices, would be almost an understatement. It is well-illustrated with photographs and maps, drawing of artifacts like clay pipes and hay knives, even sheet music for songs. Over his many visits to Ballymenone, Glassie gets to know many key informants, and with him we get to watch them grow older; some of them fall ill, and some of them pass on. There is sadness in that, and at the same time a sense that the traditions of life and culture that they embody will live on. Glassie’s Passing the Time in Ballymenone, which was named a New York Times book of the year for 1982, is truly a classic of ethnographic literature.
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May 27, 2011Henry Glassie wrote this wonderfully respectful portrait of a rural Irish community in the nineteen seventies, recording the work practices and the social patterns of its farming people in great detail. He pays particular attention to the strong story-telling tradition that was still alive in the community at that time. He recorded many stories in great detail and highlighted the strong connection between factual history and myth. Now that such story-tellers and their way of life are gone forever, the value of this study is even greater in terms of a historical document. Would that a Henry Glassie had been around to record all the other such communities in the world.
June 23, 2009
This is one of my all-time favorite books. We're talking Top 10 Desert Island Reading here. It's an ethnography of an Ulster community with such amazing attention to detail--to everything from the music of the ceili, to two brothers rethatching their roof, to the earthenware in the cupboard. For anyone interested in Irish history and culture or in how to magically write about material culture, this is a classic.
November 23, 2009
I second Julie H.'s positive review.
I discovered this book in the mid 90s and immediately found it to be an amazingly thorough ethnographic analysis of the relationship between traditional culture and new technologies.
It's not a bed-table read, however. I believe I first read it with a pencil, highlighter and sticky notes in hand. Many books have come and gone over the years, but this one will always hold a prominent place on my bookshelf.
I discovered this book in the mid 90s and immediately found it to be an amazingly thorough ethnographic analysis of the relationship between traditional culture and new technologies.
It's not a bed-table read, however. I believe I first read it with a pencil, highlighter and sticky notes in hand. Many books have come and gone over the years, but this one will always hold a prominent place on my bookshelf.
December 9, 2011
“Passing the time” is not wasting time; rather, it is a vitally important way of spending meaningful time with others, of achieving and maintaining community. Such is part of the message of Henry Glassie’s detailed and thorough ethnographic study Passing the Time in Ballymenone.
Glassie, a long-time folklore professor at Indiana University, was very thorough indeed in setting forth his ethnographic study of a rural community in Northern Ireland. His purpose, as the book’s subtitle indicates, is to elucidate the Culture and History of an Ulster Community.
Ballymenone is a name that Glassie gives to a rural community of County Fermanagh, close to Lough Erne. Settling in and living among the people of Ballymenone, Glassie focuses on rituals like the ceili: “Ceilis are composed of neighbors who come out of the night to sit together and, as Hugh Nolan says, ‘pass a lock of hours.’ Talk begins with greetings – ‘How’s Tommy?’ ‘What news’ – and expands as the ‘ceiliers’ examine the community’s health” (p. 41). This ritual, like others that Glassie chronicles in his book, exists in this rural community for an eminently practical reason: “Agricultural workers need one another. They have to know who needs their help and whose help they can count on when troubles arise” (p. 41).
Glassie is patient, methodical, in collecting the testimony of key informants and relating it to his larger themes. As he puts it at one point, “I would have been less than a scholar, a traitor to my teachers, had I collected texts without listening to what people had to say” (p. 200).
His collecting of detail occurred during the mid-1970’s, during some of the worst periods of “the Troubles,” the civil conflict in Northern Ireland between predominantly Catholic nationalists and mainly Protestant unionists. While the Troubles are not at the center of Glassie’s study, the conflict is a presence in the book; one of the most evocative photographs in Passing the Time in Ballymenone is of a city street that looks perfectly ordinary until one notices the sign that reads “CONTROL ZONE – NO VEHICLE MAY BE LEFT UNATTENDED” – a clear response to the car bombs that were sometimes deployed as terrorist weapons in that grim time. Glassie prefers to turn away from the seemingly insoluble problems of the Northern Ireland conflict, and to turn toward the life of Ballymenone: “I do not know Belfast, but I do know Ballymenone. People there are not religious fanatics….The District’s people hold a faith so deep, so sure and serene, that it rarely comes to their lips….Religious difference, they believe, is a matter more of birth than persuasion, and all forms of religion are valid” (p. 300).
Glassie prefers to focus on the rituals of everyday life: the architecture of homes and farmsteads, the implements that farmers use to work the land, the way in which different storytellers recount ancient stories of battles, the songs that people sing and the principles of effective singing. He takes pains in capturing the way his informants speak: “Och, it was a tedious -- coorse, when there was plenty of help in the country, they’d tackle anything in that line, but it was a tedious job” (p. 600).
To call Passing the Time at Ballymenone thorough, with its 718 pages of text, plus 117 pages of footnotes and appendices, would be almost an understatement. It is well-illustrated with photographs and maps, drawing of artifacts like clay pipes and hay knives, even sheet music for songs. Over his many visits to Ballymenone, Glassie gets to know many key informants, and with him we get to watch them grow older; some of them fall ill, and some of them pass on. There is sadness in that, and at the same time a sense that the traditions of life and culture that they embody will live on. Glassie’s Passing the Time in Ballymenone, which was named a New York Times book of the year for 1982, is truly a classic of ethnographic literature.
Glassie, a long-time folklore professor at Indiana University, was very thorough indeed in setting forth his ethnographic study of a rural community in Northern Ireland. His purpose, as the book’s subtitle indicates, is to elucidate the Culture and History of an Ulster Community.
Ballymenone is a name that Glassie gives to a rural community of County Fermanagh, close to Lough Erne. Settling in and living among the people of Ballymenone, Glassie focuses on rituals like the ceili: “Ceilis are composed of neighbors who come out of the night to sit together and, as Hugh Nolan says, ‘pass a lock of hours.’ Talk begins with greetings – ‘How’s Tommy?’ ‘What news’ – and expands as the ‘ceiliers’ examine the community’s health” (p. 41). This ritual, like others that Glassie chronicles in his book, exists in this rural community for an eminently practical reason: “Agricultural workers need one another. They have to know who needs their help and whose help they can count on when troubles arise” (p. 41).
Glassie is patient, methodical, in collecting the testimony of key informants and relating it to his larger themes. As he puts it at one point, “I would have been less than a scholar, a traitor to my teachers, had I collected texts without listening to what people had to say” (p. 200).
His collecting of detail occurred during the mid-1970’s, during some of the worst periods of “the Troubles,” the civil conflict in Northern Ireland between predominantly Catholic nationalists and mainly Protestant unionists. While the Troubles are not at the center of Glassie’s study, the conflict is a presence in the book; one of the most evocative photographs in Passing the Time in Ballymenone is of a city street that looks perfectly ordinary until one notices the sign that reads “CONTROL ZONE – NO VEHICLE MAY BE LEFT UNATTENDED” – a clear response to the car bombs that were sometimes deployed as terrorist weapons in that grim time. Glassie prefers to turn away from the seemingly insoluble problems of the Northern Ireland conflict, and to turn toward the life of Ballymenone: “I do not know Belfast, but I do know Ballymenone. People there are not religious fanatics….The District’s people hold a faith so deep, so sure and serene, that it rarely comes to their lips….Religious difference, they believe, is a matter more of birth than persuasion, and all forms of religion are valid” (p. 300).
Glassie prefers to focus on the rituals of everyday life: the architecture of homes and farmsteads, the implements that farmers use to work the land, the way in which different storytellers recount ancient stories of battles, the songs that people sing and the principles of effective singing. He takes pains in capturing the way his informants speak: “Och, it was a tedious -- coorse, when there was plenty of help in the country, they’d tackle anything in that line, but it was a tedious job” (p. 600).
To call Passing the Time at Ballymenone thorough, with its 718 pages of text, plus 117 pages of footnotes and appendices, would be almost an understatement. It is well-illustrated with photographs and maps, drawing of artifacts like clay pipes and hay knives, even sheet music for songs. Over his many visits to Ballymenone, Glassie gets to know many key informants, and with him we get to watch them grow older; some of them fall ill, and some of them pass on. There is sadness in that, and at the same time a sense that the traditions of life and culture that they embody will live on. Glassie’s Passing the Time in Ballymenone, which was named a New York Times book of the year for 1982, is truly a classic of ethnographic literature.
January 28, 2026
Henry Glassie, a renowned folklorist, and College Professor Emeritus at Indiana University Bloomington, celebrates his birthday on March 24th. His book, Passing the Time in Ballymenone, is a fascinating and detailed exploration of life in a small, tight-knit community in Northern Ireland. In this book, Glassie captures the rich cultural traditions, values, and beliefs of the people of Ballymenone, offering readers a unique and insightful glimpse into the daily lives of this community.
The members of the Reading Trap Book Club had mixed feelings about the book they recently read, despite it being a perfect selection for the St. Patrick's Day celebrations. The book was quite lengthy, almost 900 pages, including footnotes. It took Glassie seven years to research and document first-hand notes for this book. No one read the entire book (although I am still working on it myself). However, since the book was organized by subjects with sections that could be read independently, members chose parts to read and report on. This gave everyone a good sense of what was included in the comprehensive book and allowed everyone to learn from each other. Some participants had more interesting sections than others, but all had a great time discussing and sampling Irish dishes at the group’s meeting last Thursday. The table was loaded with potato soup, shepherd’s pie, shortbread, a crock of cabbage with bacon, Bailey’s chocolate cheesecake, and actual butter cookies from Dublin, Ireland.
The text discusses various topics such as the methods used for growing potatoes in a section called "Moss". Another section titled "Butter" talks about the process of making butter and shares some folktales related to fairies. The text also explores some philosophical beliefs, highlighting the difference between quiet and silence. While it's essential to have quiet moments and meditate, being silent can lead to negativity. There are times when we need to speak out for what is right.
In this community, oral traditions were highly valued, following Glassie's approach. He spent much of the 1970s making recordings of conversations with the people he came to know as friends. The total population of Ballymenone consisted of 42 households, 130 people. Today the village no longer exists, making this book exceptionally important as a record of the old ways of life. During Glassie's time there, the people of Ballymenone, predominantly Catholic, endured the worst of "The Troubles." Amidst distant bombs in the night, and soldiers passing by during the day, Glassie was at first greeted with skepticism until he mentioned a fiddle tune, he knew from Appalachia.
Glassie's interest in the old music that was brought to a new world by Irish immigrants proved to be an asset during his research. Coincidentally, while starting to read this book, I also stumbled upon a piece about Ola Belle Reed, a renowned banjo player and songwriter from Lansing, North Carolina, and then discovered it was also written by Henry Glassie! With a considerable knowledge of Irish fiddle tunes, Glassie gained the trust of Ballymenone's elders and recorded their stories, superstitions, rituals, habits, and customs carefully. He had to ensure that he did not document certain stories to avoid offending them.
I was impressed by Glassie’s prose and ways of making me think about his work. Here’s a quote from the book that shows his views about what he was doing and the love he had for the people and the land. “While the historian sees peasants as oppressed, grease for the economic system, meat for the battlefield, the folklorist sees them as singers and dancers.”
I would encourage other readers with an interest in Northern Ireland’s old way of life to check out Glassie’s book. Some have compared it to an Irish version of America’s Foxfire series.
The members of the Reading Trap Book Club had mixed feelings about the book they recently read, despite it being a perfect selection for the St. Patrick's Day celebrations. The book was quite lengthy, almost 900 pages, including footnotes. It took Glassie seven years to research and document first-hand notes for this book. No one read the entire book (although I am still working on it myself). However, since the book was organized by subjects with sections that could be read independently, members chose parts to read and report on. This gave everyone a good sense of what was included in the comprehensive book and allowed everyone to learn from each other. Some participants had more interesting sections than others, but all had a great time discussing and sampling Irish dishes at the group’s meeting last Thursday. The table was loaded with potato soup, shepherd’s pie, shortbread, a crock of cabbage with bacon, Bailey’s chocolate cheesecake, and actual butter cookies from Dublin, Ireland.
The text discusses various topics such as the methods used for growing potatoes in a section called "Moss". Another section titled "Butter" talks about the process of making butter and shares some folktales related to fairies. The text also explores some philosophical beliefs, highlighting the difference between quiet and silence. While it's essential to have quiet moments and meditate, being silent can lead to negativity. There are times when we need to speak out for what is right.
In this community, oral traditions were highly valued, following Glassie's approach. He spent much of the 1970s making recordings of conversations with the people he came to know as friends. The total population of Ballymenone consisted of 42 households, 130 people. Today the village no longer exists, making this book exceptionally important as a record of the old ways of life. During Glassie's time there, the people of Ballymenone, predominantly Catholic, endured the worst of "The Troubles." Amidst distant bombs in the night, and soldiers passing by during the day, Glassie was at first greeted with skepticism until he mentioned a fiddle tune, he knew from Appalachia.
Glassie's interest in the old music that was brought to a new world by Irish immigrants proved to be an asset during his research. Coincidentally, while starting to read this book, I also stumbled upon a piece about Ola Belle Reed, a renowned banjo player and songwriter from Lansing, North Carolina, and then discovered it was also written by Henry Glassie! With a considerable knowledge of Irish fiddle tunes, Glassie gained the trust of Ballymenone's elders and recorded their stories, superstitions, rituals, habits, and customs carefully. He had to ensure that he did not document certain stories to avoid offending them.
I was impressed by Glassie’s prose and ways of making me think about his work. Here’s a quote from the book that shows his views about what he was doing and the love he had for the people and the land. “While the historian sees peasants as oppressed, grease for the economic system, meat for the battlefield, the folklorist sees them as singers and dancers.”
I would encourage other readers with an interest in Northern Ireland’s old way of life to check out Glassie’s book. Some have compared it to an Irish version of America’s Foxfire series.
March 22, 2026
This unclassifiable book is a treasure. Glassie went to a district in south Fermanagh in the 1970s and immersed himself in the lives and culture of the people there over the course of nearly a decade, to understand everything he could about them and how they lived. The result is something that isn't folklore, isn't anthropology, isn't history. It's all of those things, but also, I think, philosophy.
He set out to understand the role of work in their lives, the values that made them tick, and the people who had central roles in the way the community saw itself. His later book focused on the people - singers, storytellers, historians - who together generated the community's sense of identity. This one is more topical.
The generation of people he came to know best in the 70s was dying off even then, and it's sobering to realize that all the people he found at the center of this community are long gone. His last chapter is a sort of In Memoriam of the ones who were gone even by the time he wrote the book.
His aim is not to sanitize an impoverished way of life and idealize it. He looks closer than that, and finds that the overwhelming value of these people, deeper than any of the religious and political divisions that were just beginning to be called The Troubles, is care for your neighbor. The very lack of mechanized farm equipment and electricity deepened this value, because everyone helped everyone bring in the hay, and cut the turf, and if you helped others you could count on the same help returning to you. How that value has continued to exist and express itself now would be an interesting thing to know.
Listening to the storytellers give accounts of important events in the history of the district, Glassie formulates the idea that history for them is not so much demarcated by time (dates) but by space - if something happened within their district, they can tell you what happened, where it happened, who was involved, and what it meant to everyone, even if they might be a couple of years off on the date. If something happened outside the boundaries of their district, they defer and say they don't have the whole story, that they heard of it but weren't solid on the details.
There isn't another book like this anywhere that I know of, a combination of folklore and anthropology and history and philosophy, as well as a loving portrait of a group of quietly exceptional individuals around whose hearths the community's identity was built. If you know anything about Ireland and have any ties there at all, this will resonate with you and make you think about what we all value in our lives and communities.
He set out to understand the role of work in their lives, the values that made them tick, and the people who had central roles in the way the community saw itself. His later book focused on the people - singers, storytellers, historians - who together generated the community's sense of identity. This one is more topical.
The generation of people he came to know best in the 70s was dying off even then, and it's sobering to realize that all the people he found at the center of this community are long gone. His last chapter is a sort of In Memoriam of the ones who were gone even by the time he wrote the book.
His aim is not to sanitize an impoverished way of life and idealize it. He looks closer than that, and finds that the overwhelming value of these people, deeper than any of the religious and political divisions that were just beginning to be called The Troubles, is care for your neighbor. The very lack of mechanized farm equipment and electricity deepened this value, because everyone helped everyone bring in the hay, and cut the turf, and if you helped others you could count on the same help returning to you. How that value has continued to exist and express itself now would be an interesting thing to know.
Listening to the storytellers give accounts of important events in the history of the district, Glassie formulates the idea that history for them is not so much demarcated by time (dates) but by space - if something happened within their district, they can tell you what happened, where it happened, who was involved, and what it meant to everyone, even if they might be a couple of years off on the date. If something happened outside the boundaries of their district, they defer and say they don't have the whole story, that they heard of it but weren't solid on the details.
There isn't another book like this anywhere that I know of, a combination of folklore and anthropology and history and philosophy, as well as a loving portrait of a group of quietly exceptional individuals around whose hearths the community's identity was built. If you know anything about Ireland and have any ties there at all, this will resonate with you and make you think about what we all value in our lives and communities.
May 11, 2022
This book would be one of ten I'd take to a desert island (among the others would be Dune, The Alexandria Quartet (if I can bring my omnibus edition), The Budayeen trilogy (again, omnibus), and probably Mary Gentle's Grunts). As works of ethnography and folklore go, it is second to none and really worth your time to read. Don't be deterred by its phonebook-like size, if anything, you'll be wishing it was longer (The Stars of Ballymenone is worth looking at if you want more by Glassie, and trust me, you do.) once you come to the end. This is the second copy I've purchased and it was worth every cent. That said, it can be a tad pricey if you buy it new, so...buy it used.
Masterfully edited and put together, truly a treasure chest in print.
Masterfully edited and put together, truly a treasure chest in print.
April 11, 2024
Too dense for me at this time, though I do want to finish it at some point
August 10, 2008
Dense and rich and delicious - I could only read a chapter at a time. Otherwise it's like trying to eat a whole cheesecake. Might be my favorite non-fiction book. Gorgeous
March 17, 2009
About as engaging as a cultural anthropology book can be expected to be.
April 23, 2010
I became a folklore major in college after listening to a lecture by Henry Glassie that I will never forget.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews