Roman B.J. Kwasniewski, son of Polish immigrants, used his camera to document life in Milwaukee's Polish community during the early decades of the twentieth century. His images transform the particulars of everyday life at local businesses, in homes and classrooms, and at cultural, social, and recreational events into powerful depictions of the immigrant experience. With an introduction by well-known Milwaukee historian John Gurda, this book offers rare insight into the daily lives of a proud people struggling to maintain their heritage while living in a time of rapid change.

While Kwasniewski's camera captured the sights and sounds of Milwaukee at the turn of the century from the perspective of a single ethnic group in a single neighborhood, his photographs resonate far beyond Milwaukee's Polish South Side. They illuminate the particulars of American life during the early decades of the twentieth century. "What we see, reflected in the distant mirror," says John Gurda, "is ourselves."

What can we learn from baseball great Ted Williams about how to improve our writing? What can we learn we from the iconic ESPN show SportsCenter  about how to manage information? And are you sure you really know what the word “peruse” means? 

Explore these and other questions in the second volume of The Syntax of Sports, a series designed to recreate a popular course at the University of Michigan. Here are a few things students have said about the experience of taking it.

•  “Patrick Barry is the best teacher I have ever had. I have never learned so much in a class. I hated English my whole life until I took this course.”

• “I feel like this is and always will be the most valuable class I've ever taken here.”

• “I genuinely wanted to show up to this class due to the amount I knew I would learn.” 

•  “I'm going to severely SEVERELY miss this course.”

• “Every student should try to take one of Prof. Barry’s classes if he or she wants to become a better writer.”

•  “My writing is now 113x better.”