Introduction - America's First Nations; Discovery, Exploration and Colonisation; Revolution and Independence; The Young Republic; Jefferson and the Democratic Republic; The Age of Jackson; The West (Pre-Civil War); Sectional Conflict; Civil War and Reconstruction; The West (Post-Civil War); The Gilded Age and Imperial America; Populism, Progressivism and the Great War; Boom, Bust and the New Deal; World War II and the Origins of the Cold War; Post-war America: The Fifties and Sixties; Retrenchment: The Seventies and Eighties; Post-Cold War America: Cold War Ends, War on Terror Begins; Index.
Michael Mucz teaches in the areas of botany and ecology at the University of Alberta's Augustana Campus in Camrose. His research interests include ethnobotany and herbal medicine.
"Early Ukrainian settlers didn't have the luxury of running to the
doctor for every cut or sniffle. Instead, they looked in their
gardens for their own medicinal remedies to cure infection, fevers
and hangovers. Those kitchen remedies from early Ukrainian pioneers
are captured in University of Alberta professor Michael Mucz's new
book, Baba's Kitchen Medicines: Folk Remedies of Ukrainian Settlers
in Western Canada. Many of the home remedies are from the late
1800s to early 1900s when modern medicine was still in its infancy
and pioneers had little money and almost no access to doctors.
Puffball spores kept in a bag year round were used as a simple
antibiotic. More serious infections would be treated with fresh cow
manure. Both puffballs and cow manure contain natural antibiotics.
Simple garden plants and weeds were an important part of the home
remedies, said Mucz, who included several interview transcripts in
the book to give a sense of the illness and remedies... Eighty-five
percent of the world's population still uses home remedies. Mucz
said the early pioneers knew that the body has a tremendous healing
capacity." Mary MacArthur, The Western Producer, March 23, 2012
[Full article at http://bit.ly/GVeKDV]
*The Western Producer*
"When he set out to research and document uses of plants by early
Ukrainian settlers in western Canada, Michael Mucz had no idea just
how much his project would blossom and bear fruit. But Mucz's
resulting book-20 years in the making-is a lovingly detailed
chronicle that wraps science, Ukrainian culture and western
Canadian history into one quirky package and flexes the boundaries
of traditional scientific research.... Mucz's newly
released Baba's Kitchen Medicines is a testament to the
ingenuity and resourcefulness of western Canada's Ukrainian
settlers, who used what was at hand to deal with just about every
ailment, including frostbite, diaper rash, anxiety, kidney stones
and infected limbs.... A hybrid mix of botany, history and
anthropology, Mucz's research is as much a story about hardship and
endurance as it is a scientific record..." Bev Betkowski,
University of Alberta News, April 10, 2012
# 1 on the Edmonton Journal's Bestsellers list for the week on
April 15, 2012
"[Michael Mucz's] research, which began in 1992, was conducted by
speaking to more than 200 children of Ukrainian settlers. It
unearthed the practical use of plants and household items as the
cure to everyday ailments. The result was Baba's Kitchen Medicines
... equal parts history, anthropology and botany.... The
settler population may not have known medically why the remedies
worked, but they knew there was value in the traditions passed down
to them.... The average age of the people Mucz interviewed was
81. Today, few of them are living to see the completed work.
Readers have said to him the book let them reconnect with their
families' pasts." Shaamini Yogaretnam, Edmonton Journal, April 30,
2012, [Full article at http://bit.ly/IEbvqr]
# 3 on the Edmonton Journal's Bestsellers list for the week on
April 29, 2012
Edmonton Journal, #5 in the Edmonton Non-Fiction bestsellers
"Using a tape recorder and a notebook, Mucz personally conducted
200 interviews in Alberta's east-central communities, visiting
seniors in their own homes as well as in lodges of nursing homes.
He painstakingly gathered one-on-one remembrances of healing
remedies and treatments used on isolated homesteads and farms." Bev
Betkowski, Folio
# 5 on the Edmonton Journal's Bestsellers list for the week of May
20, 2012
"History is full of examples of civilization passing traditions
down from generation to generation, and for one Camrose man that
tradition was a calling that he pursued for more than 20 years....
[Michael Mucz ] is the author of Baba's Kitchen Medicines: Folk
Remedies of Ukrainian Settlers in Western Canada, a book that is
receiving high accolades for its exploration of home remedies in
the Ukrainian culture.... The book was published earlier this
month and is very practical in nature. Mucz wanted it to bring back
memories as people read it.'I didn't want it to be a cerebral
thing,' he said. 'I wanted it to be a heart thing.' And since his
book was published at the start of April, the feedback he is
receiving has convinced Mucz that he has achieved that goal." Mark
Crown, Wetaskiwin Times Advertiser, April 2012 [Full article at
http://bit.ly/JAb5T1]
#2 on the Edmonton Journal's Bestseller list, May 27, 2012.
# 5 on the Edmonton Journal's Bestsellers list for the week of June
02, 2012
# 3 on the Edmonton Journal's Bestsellers list for the week of June
10, 2012
# 7 on the Edmonton Journal's Bestsellers list for the week of June
17, 2012.
#6 on the Edmonton Journal's Bestsellers list for the week of June
24, 2012.
"An unusual gem, this scholarly volume is one of the few works in
English on traditional healing practices of Ukrainian
immigrants.... Detailed information on wild and cultivated plants
used in healing includes their preparation and administration. A
section on common ailments lists traditional treatments used for
each. Squeamish readers should be warned that remedies include the
use of cow manure, leeches, dog saliva, and other unsavory
substances.... This work can also serve as a model of ethnomedical
research methodology. Appendixes contain interview forms, a
glossary of botanical terms, and transliterations from Ukrainian to
English. For libraries supporting research in ethnobotany,
pharmacy, North American history, or Slavic studies. Recommended."
J. S. Whelan, Harvard Medical School, Choice Magazine, September
2012
"Mucz, thankfully, begins his book with a strongly worded
disclaimer. This is not a medical or herbalist text by any stretch;
he aims to document the lives of those early settlers. The book
focuses on medical treatments, but the milieu in which they were
practised looms large.... The list of treatments is varied and
fascinating; one imagines the babas springing into action to sooth
aching muscles, to calm a cough with honey or to deliver babies.
The liberal use of homebrewed alcohol, pickle juice and garlic
evoke powerful scents." Mari Sasano, Alberta Views, September
2012
# 7 on the Edmonton Journal's Bestsellers list (Edmonton
Non-fiction) for the week of June 28, 2013.
“With his focus on the early period of Ukrainian settlement in
western Canada, ethnobotanist Michael Mucz points to an
understudied aspect of pioneering and tackles his data with all the
tools at his command.… Mucz and his Baba’s Kitchen Medicines make
an important contribution to this bank of knowledge. In the
meantime I recommend that you take the time to scan the index, pick
your favourite ailment, and check out the remedy. You may be
surprised!”
*Journal of Ukrainian Studies 37*
"From Olena Boriak’s listing of ethnographic research
proposals...we learn that Ukrainian folk medicine took root as a
field of serious investigation in the second half of the nineteenth
century.... Mucz and his Baba’s Kitchen Medicines make an important
contribution to this bank of knowledge.... I recommend that you
take the time to scan the index, pick your favourite ailment, and
check out the remedy. You may be surprised!"
*Journal of Canadian Studies 37*
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