New Books, Films, Databases, and other Resources: June 2011

ere, published for the first time in the United States, is the last book by Roger Deakin, famed British nature writer and icon of the environmentalist movement. In Deakin's glorious meditation on wood, the "fifth element" -- as it exists in nature, in our culture, and in our souls -- the reader accompanies Deakin through the woods of Britain, Europe, Kazakhstan, and Australia in search of what lies behind man's profound and enduring connection with trees.

Deakin lives in forest shacks, goes "coppicing" in Suffolk, swims beneath the walnut trees of the Haut-Languedoc, and hunts bushplums with Aboriginal women in the outback. Along the way, he ferrets out the mysteries of woods, detailing the life stories of the timber beams composing his Elizabethan house and searching for the origin of the apple.

"Humans live in large and extensive societies and spend much of their time interacting socially. Likewise, most other animals also interact socially. Social behaviour is of constant fascination to biologists and psychologists of many disciplines, from behavioural ecology to comparative biology and sociobiology. The two major approaches used to study social behaviour involve either the mechanism of behaviour - where it has come from and how it has evolved, or the function of the behaviour studied. With guest articles from leaders in the field, theoretical foundations along with recent advances are presented to give a truly multidisciplinary overview of social behaviour, for advanced undergraduate and graduate students. Topics include aggression, communication, group living, sexual behaviour and co-operative breeding. With examples ranging from bacteria to social mammals and humans, a variety of research tools are used, including candidate gene approaches, quantitative genetics, neuro-endocrine studies, cost-benefit and phylogenetic analyses and evolutionary game theory"

"Plant community ecology has traditionally taken a taxonomical approach based on population dynamics. This book contrasts such an approach with a trait-based approach. After reviewing these two approaches, it then explains how models based on the MaximumEntropy Formalism can be used to predict the relative abundance of different species from a potential species pool. Following this it shows how the trait constraints, upon which the model is based, are necessary consequences of natural selection and population dynamics. The final sections of the book extend the discussion to macroecological patterns of species abundance and concludes with some outstanding unresolved questions."

There are an estimated 50 million parrots kept as pets the U.S. alone, their numbers surpassed only by dogs and cats, yet these complex creatures are not your typical domesticated animal, and they remain a mystery to many. Most people dont know that parrots score at the level of 3-to-5 year olds on human intelligence tests. Nor that they can live to 100 years or more. Nor that pound for pound parrots are worth more on the black market than cocaine. Their startling beauty, social sophistication, and uncanny ability to bond with humans have made parrots sought-after pets, but few people realize how fragile and endangered many parrot species have become.

From its largely ineffectual politicians to its miserly support of education, health care, cultural institutions, and social services, Tullos examines why Alabama appears to be stuck in repetitive loops of uneven development and debilitating habits of judgment. The state remains tied to fundamentalisms of religion, race, gender, winner-take-all economics, and militarism enforced by punitive and defensive responses to criticism. Tullos traces the spectral legacy of George Wallace, ponders the roots of anti-egalitarian political institutions and tax structures, and challenges Birmingham native Condoleezza Rice’s use of the civil rights struggle to justify the war in Iraq. He also gives due coverage to the state’s black citizens who with a minority of whites have sustained a movement for social justice and democratic inclusion. As Alabama competes for cultural tourism and global industries like auto manufacturing and biomedical research, Alabama Getaway asks if the coming years will see a transformation of the “Heart of Dixie.”

Celebrated, controversial, condemned, Galileo Galilei is a seminal figure in the history of science. Both Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein credit him as the first modern scientist. His 1633 trial before the Holy Office of the Inquisition is the prime drama in the history of the conflict between science and religion. In Galileo's day, Rome was the capital of a sovereign theocratic power, which in 1600 had executed Giordano Bruno on similar charges and reserved the right to torture Galileo. Galileo was then sixty-nine years old and the most venerated scientist in Italy. Although subscribing to an anti-literalist view of the Bible, as per Saint Augustine, Galileo considered himself a believing Catholic. Playing to his own strengths ;a deep knowledge of Italy, a longstanding interest in Renaissance and Baroque lore's;Dan Hofstadter explains apparent paradoxes and limns this historic moment in the widest cultural context, portraying Galileo as both humanist and scientist.

Conceptual Physical Science, 4/e takes learning physical science to a new level by combining Hewitt's leading conceptual approach with a friendly writing style, stronger integration of the sciences, more quantitative coverage, and a wealth of media resources to help readers. This engaging book provides a conceptual overview of basic, essential topics in physics, chemistry, earth science, and astronomy with optional quantitative analyses.....

This new volume contains four previously unpublished lectures that Feynman gave to students preparing for exams. With characteristic flair, insight and humor, Feynman discusses topics students struggle with and offers valuable tips on solving physics problems

Join the editors of TIME to observe the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War in a richly illustrated chronicle of the confl ict that changed America. It's an immense subject-a battle between freedom and slavery, waged across the breadth of the still-expanding nation over a period of four years-and TIME has created an oversized volume to tell the story in the grand
style it deserves.

To bring the tale to life, the book focuses on little-seen photographs and original artifacts from the period: sketches from soldier's diaries, unusual and rare military and political memorabilia. And it brings us face-to-face with those who lived through the period, presenting scores of excerpts from the letters and diaries of soldiers, offi cers and statesmen. Yet the book also captures the full sweep of the war, telling the tale in chronological fashion, as the war evolves from a quiet beginning to become a mammoth struggle that consumed the divided nation. Here are the great generals: Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee and "Stonewall" Jackson. Here are the great battles, from Bull Run and Antietam to Gettysburg and Shiloh. Here are the latest discoveries and analysis by scholars of the conflict. And here are fascinating, informative graphics that reveal the war in fresh, clarifying detail. Here is a larger-than-life conflict, reported and illuminated in a larger-than-life oversized edition from TIME.

On the murderous road to "racial purity, " Hitler encountered unexpected detours. As Rigg shows in this provocative new study, a startlingly large number of German military men were classified by the Nazis as Jews or "partial-Jews" (Mischlinge)

The author of The Mummy's Congress offers an eye-opening expos of the role of the Ahnenerbe, a Nazi research institute established by Heinrich Himmler and made up of German scientists and scholars, many of whom resumed their regular academic careers at the end of the war, in promoting Himmler's master plan for the Final Solution

...a fascinating look at the founding fathers from the unique and intimate perspective of their lives as gardeners, plantsmen, and farmers. For the founding fathers, gardening, agriculture, and botanywere elemental passions, as deeply ingrained in their characters as their belief in liberty for the nation they were creating. Andrea Wulf reveals for the first time this aspect of the revolutionary generation. She describes how, even as British ships gathered off Staten Island, George Washington wrote his estate manager about the garden at Mount Vernon; how a tour of English gardens renewed Thomas Jefferson's and John Adams's faith in their fledgling nation; how a trip to the great botanist John Bartram's garden helped the delegates of the Constitutional Congress break their deadlock; and why James Madison is the forgotten father of American environmentalism. These and other stories reveal a guiding but previously overlooked ideology of the American Revolution. Founding Gardeners adds depth and nuance to our understanding of the American experiment, and provides us with a portrait of the founding fathers as they've never before been seen.

Produced with the Smithsonian Institution and released in conjunction with the 150th anniversary of the start of the war, "The Civil War" is the definitive visual history to one of the most defining moments in America's history.

In this spellbinding new history, David Goldfield offers the first major new interpretation of the Civil War era since James M. McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom. Where past scholars have limned the war as a triumph of freedom, Goldfield sees it as America's greatest failure: the result of a breakdown caused by the infusion of evangelical religion into the public sphere. As the Second GreatAwakening surged through America, political questions became matters of good and evil to be fought to the death.

The price of that failure was horrific, but the carnage accomplished what statesmen could not: It made the United States one nation and eliminated slavery as a divisive force in the Union. The victorious North became synonymous with America as a land of innovation and industrialization, whose teeming cities offered squalor and opportunity in equal measure. Religion was supplanted by science and a gospel of progress, and the South was left behind.

Goldfield's panoramic narrative, sweeping from the 1840s to the end of Reconstruction, is studded with memorable details and luminaries such as HarrietBeecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, and Walt Whitman. There are lesser known yet equally compelling characters, too, including Carl Schurz—a German immigrant, warhero, and postwar reformer—and Alexander Stephens, the urbane and intellectual vice president of the Confederacy. America Aflame is a vivid portrait of the "fiery trial"that transformed the country we live in.

In a striking reinterpretation of the postwar years, Robert Dallek examines what drove the leaders of the most powerful and populous nations around the globe—Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Mao, de Gaulle, and Truman—to rely on traditional power politics despite the catastrophic violence their nations had endured. The decisions of these men, for better and often for worse, had profound consequences for decades to come, influencing relations and conflicts with China, Korea, in the Middle East, and around the globe.

The Lost Peace is a penetrating look at the misjudgments that caused enormous strife and suffering during this critical period, from the closing months of World War II through the early years of the Cold War. From Hitler's killing program to Stalin's paranoia to Truman's decision to build hydrogen bombs, the men who led the world at this time executed astonishingly unwise actions that propelled the nuclear arms race and extended the Cold War. Dallek has written a cautionary tale that considers what might have been done differently to avoid the difficulties that strong and weak nations around the globe encountered in the mid-twentieth century.

The tree is beloved as Mother Nature's visible symbol of power and grace. The Meaning of Trees is a beautiful celebration of their lore and spirit, botany and history. Genera from aspen to willow are captured in 70 dramatic photographs that illustrate their brilliant seasonal transformations. Featuring 50 different types of tree, this informative compendium describes each by way of botanical qualities; medicinal uses for their leaves, bark, and wood; cultural symbolism; magical associations; and so much more. Fascinating facts abound: the Druids believed that only the wood of the yew tree was fit to make wands; a Ukrainian tonic of birch leaves contains the same healing properties as aspirin. A visually stunning and engaging guide, The Meaning of Trees is a fitting tribute to this most majestic of natural wonders.

....Smith argues that the most recognizable kind is characterized by a return to mainstream modernism in the work of such artists as Richard Serra and Gerhard Richter, as well as the retro-sensationalism of figures like Damien Hirst and Takashi Murakami. At the same time, Smith reveals, postcolonial artists are engaged in a different kind of practice: one that builds on local concerns and tackles questions of identity, history, and globalization. A younger generation embodies yet a third approach to contemporaneity by investigating time, place, mediation, and ethics through small-scale, closely connective art making. Inviting readers into these diverse yet overlapping art worlds, Smith offers a behind-the-scenes introduction to the institutions, the personalities, the biennials, and of course the works that together are defining the contemporary. The resulting map of where art is now illuminates not only where it has been but also where it is going.

Child of the Fire is the first book-length examination of the career of the nineteenth-century artist Mary Edmonia Lewis, best known for her sculptures inspired by historical and biblical themes.....

From the author of the acclaimed Simply Christian and Surprised by Hope comes a book that addresses the question that has plagued humans for centuries—what is our purpose? As Christians, what are we to do with that ambiguous time between baptism and the funeral? It's easy to become preoccupied with who gets into heaven; the real challenge is how we are going to live in the here and now.

Wright dispels the common misconception that Christian living is nothing more than a checklist of dos and don'ts. Nor is it a prescription to "follow your heart" wherever it may lead. Instead, After You Believe reveals the Bible's call for a revolution—a transformation of character that takes us beyond our earthly pursuit of money, sex, and power into a virtuous state of living that allows us to reflect God and live more worshipful, fulfilling lives.

We are all spiritual seekers, intuitively knowing there is more to life than we suspect. This is a book for anyone who is hoping there is something more while we're here on Earth. There is. We are being called to join the revolution, and Wright insightfully encourages readers to find new purpose and clarity by taking us on an eye-opening journey through key biblical passages that promise to radically alter the work of the church and the direction of our lives.

This is the most authoritative edition of the King James Bible available. The text of the 1611 edition differs from modern editions of the King James Version in thousands of details, and this edition is the most authentic version of the original text that has ever been published. It follows the 1611 text page-for-page and line-for-line, reproducing all misprints rather than correcting them. The volume also reprints the large body of preliminary matter, which includes genealogies, maps, and lists of readings, as well as the translator's preface to the reader. The text features an easy-to-read modern font instead of the black-letter type of the original, with the exception of the original decorative letters and early page ornaments, which have been reproduced. The volume concludes with an essay by Renaissance Studies expert, Gordon Campbell, on the first edition of the King James Bible.

Lavishly illustrated with reproductions from early editions of the King James Bible, Bible: The Story of the King James Version offers a vivid and authoritative history of this renowned translation, ranging from the Bible's inception to the present day. Gordon Campbell, a leading authority on Renaissance literatures, tells the engaging and complex story of how this translation came to be commissioned, who the translators were, and how the translation was accomplished. Campbell does not end with the printing of that first edition, but also traces the textual history from 1611 to the establishment of the modern text by Oxford University Press in 1769, shedding light on the subsequent generations who edited and interacted with the text and bringing to life the controversies surrounding later revisions. In addition, the author examines the reception of the King James Version, showing how its popularity has shifted through time and territory, ranging from adulation to deprecation and attracting the attention of a wide variety of adherents. Since the King James Bible is more widely read in America today than in any other country, Campbell pays particular attention to the history of this version in the United States. Finally, the volume includes appendices that contain short biographies of the translators and a guide to the 74-page preliminaries of the 1611 edition.

The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism traces the history of American Protestant thought from the early part of the nineteenth century to the present. William R. Hutchison deals especially with the "modernist" movement that flourished in the years around 1900, and with the colorful personalities and disputes associated with that movement.

The breakneck speed at which business is "going global" requires a new breed of executives, managers, and front-line employees who are adept at the art of cross-cultural communication, where simple misunderstandings can jeopardize multimillion dollar deals. According to business travel industry forecasts, international travel is expected to increase in 2006 and beyond, reflecting the confluence of trends that are driving businesses of all sizes to penetrate new markets, enter into strategic alliances, improve productivity, and tap into talent and expertise around the world, wherever these resources may be found. Whether you are preparing for a long-term overseas assignment, or a short trip abroad to meet with clients, customers, suppliers, or distributors, Global Business Etiquette will be an indispensable resource for understanding the dynamics of cross-cultural communication, avoiding embarrassing (and costly) gaffes, and successfully navigating the subtleties of social interaction that can set the stage for profitable long-term relationships. Drawing from their many years of research and training in the field; highlighting such important elements of communication as nonverbal gestures, dress, and gift-giving customs; and featuring dozens of colorful examples and useful tips; the authors present a practical approach to interpreting signals and symbols around the world, overcoming stereotypes, and mastering the nuances of international communication.

The forty-three chapters in African Americans in the U.S. Economy focus on various aspects of the economic status of African Americans, past and present. Taken together, these essays present two related themes: (1) when it comes to economics, race matters, and (2) racial economic discrimination and inequality persist despite the optimistic predictions of standard economic analysis that racial discrimination cannot thrive in a free-market economy.

Through poetry, fiction, essays, song lyrics, letters, and memoirs, this authoritative single-volume collection of Beat literature captures the triumphant energy of a movement that swept through American letters with hurricane force.

The environmental imagination does not stop short at the edge of the woods. Nor should our understanding of it, as Lawrence Buell makes powerfully clear in his new book that aims to reshape the field of literature and environmental studies. Emphasizing the influence of the physical environment on individual and collective perception, his book thus provides the theoretical underpinnings for an ecocriticism now reaching full power, and does so in remarkably clear and concrete ways. Writing for an Endangered World offers a conception of the physical environment--whether built or natural--as simultaneously found and constructed, and treats imaginative representations of it as acts of both discovery and invention. A number of the chapters develop this idea through parallel studies of figures identified with either "natural" or urban settings: John Muir and Jane Addams; Aldo Leopold and William Faulkner; Robinson Jeffers and Theodore Dreiser; Wendell Berry and Gwendolyn Brooks. Focusing on nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers, but ranging freely across national borders, his book re-imagines city and country as a single complex landscape.

THE CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN READER is an anthology of fiction by one of America's most important feminist writers. Probably best known as the author of "The Yellow Wallpaper," in which a woman is driven mad by chauvinist psychiatry, Gilman wrote numerous other short stories and novels reflecting her radical socialist and feminist view of turn-of-the-century America. Collected here by noted Gilman scholar Ann J. Lane are eighteen stories and fragments, including a selection from Herland, Gilman's feminist Utopia. The resulting anthology provides a provocative blueprint to Gilman's intellectual and creative production

superb collection of fiction and poetry from a major feminist voice in American literature Wonderfully sardonic and slyly humorous, the writings of landmark American feminist and socialist thinker Charlotte Perkins Gilman were penned in response to her frustration with the gender-based double standard that prevailed in America as the twentieth century began. Perhaps best known for her chilling depiction of a womanÂ's mental breakdown in her unforgettable 1892 short story “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” Gilman also wrote Herland, a cunning, wry novel that imagines a peaceful, progressive, environmentally conscious country from which men have been absent for two thousand years. Both are included in this volume, along with a selection of Gilman's major short stories and her poems.

n 1892, Charlotte Perkins Gilman published her landmark work,The Yellow Wall-Paper, generating spirited debates in literary and political circles on both sides of the Atlantic. Today this story of a young wife and mother succumbing to madness is hailed both as a feminist classic and a key text in the American literary canon. This source book combines extracts from contemporary documents and critical reviews with incisive commentary, providing: *an introduction to the political, biographical and medical contexts in which Gilman was writing *a publishing and critical history of the work with extracts from the earliest reviews through to recent criticism *a chronology of key biographical and contextual events *an annotated guide to further reading *original illustrations and photographs of the author and figures related to the story. Filled with extensive commentary, as well as contextual and critical materials, this reprint of the complete original text-as published in the New England Magazine in 1892-constitutes an important critical edition.

Although the rediscovery in 1973 of the long-forgotten story "The Yellow Wall-Paper" (1892), by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, met an enthusiastic reception, no one expected the enormous impact it would have, resulting in dozens of articles and books, numerous dissertations, dramatizations on stage and in film, and inclusion in college literature anthologies. Not surprisingly, then, the story, often alongside Gilman's second-most-famous work, Herland (1915), is widely taught in a variety of disciplines. This volume addresses the rewards and challenges of teaching these two works and offers a practical and valuable resource for teachers who are new to Gilman as well as for experienced teachers looking for fresh approaches.

This book reads tragedy as a genre in which the protagonist is estranged from the world around him, and, displaced in time, space, and language, comes to inhabit a milieu which is no longer shared by other characters. This alienation from others also entails a decomposition of the integrity of the individual, which is often seen in tragedy's uncertainty about the protagonists' autonomy: do they act, or do the gods act through them? Where are the boundaries of the self, and the boundaries of the human? After an introductory essay exploring the theatrical and linguistic means by which the protagonist is made to inhabit a strange and singular world, the book devotes essays to plays from classical, renaissance, and neo-classical literature by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Seneca, Shakespeare, and Racine. Close attention is paid to the linguistic strangeness of the texts which is often smoothed over by editors and translators, as it is through the weirdness of tragic language that the deep estrangement of the characters is shown. Accordingly, the Greek, Latin, and French texts are quoted in the originals, with translations added, and attention is paid to textual cruces which illustrate the linguistic and conceptual difficulties of these plays.

Sophocles' tragedies--fromAntigonetoOedipus Tyrannus--are filled with highly wrought, vivid, and emotionally powerful poetry. Yet most translations sacrifice the poetry to convey only the sense of the lines as dramatic speech. This is the first book in English to present Sophocles exclusively as a poet, and the only to reveal the full force and beauty of his verse. With a fresh and consistent attention to structure, language, and rhythm across Sophocles' writings, Reginald Gibbons has translated a selection of odes from Sophocles' surviving plays as well as fragments from his lost works. What emerges is a genuinely new sense of a Sophocles who was as much poet as dramatist. Bringing the Greek poet and his world surprisingly close to us, these translations also restore a sense of the long continuity of poetry. Complete with an introduction, this edition reveals Sophocles' poetic brilliance as never before.

Marianne McDonald brings together her training as a scholar of classical Greek with her vast experience in theatre and drama to help students of the classics and of theatre learn about the living performance tradition of Greek tragedy.

The Blackwell Companion to Greek Tragedy provides readers with a fundamental grounding in Greek tragedy, and also introduces them to the various methodologies and the lively critical dialogue that characterize the study of Greek tragedy today.

This is the first book systematically to examine Wolfgang Petersen’s epic film Troy from different archaeological, literary, cultural, and cinematic perspectives.
The first book systematically to examine Wolfgang Petersen’s epic film Troy from different archaeological, literary, cultural, and cinematic perspectives.
Examines the film’s use of Homer’s Iliad and the myth of the Trojan War, its presentation of Bronze-Age archaeology, and its place in film history.
Identifies the modern political overtones of the Trojan War myth as expressed in the film and explains why it found world-wide audiences.

When he was not writing tragedies, acting in his own plays, and innovating ancient Greek theater, Sophocles served as an ordained priest at a temple for the god of medicine. Thinking about the end of life, Sophocles began outlining Oedipus the King, a tragedy that examines fate, death, and the mysterious depths of the human psyche themes that he explored in all of his masterful plays.Setting the playwright in context to his personal life, social, historical and political events, other writers of influence, and more, you will quickly gain a deep understanding of Sophocles and the plays he wrote

The Soul of Tragedy brings together top scholars to offer a wide range of perspectives on Greek tragedy. The collection pays homage to this ancient, enduring theatrical and literary genre by offering a deep exploration into the oldest form of dramatic expression. It is a reminder that, for all their years, these dramas still have much to teach us.

Ernest Hemingway called Huckleberry Finn"the best book we've ever had. There was nothing before. There's been nothing as good since." Critical opinion of this book hasn't dimmed since Hemingway uttered these words; as author Russell Banks says in these pages, Twain "makes possible an American literature which would otherwise not have been possible." He was the most famous American of his day, and remains in ours the most universally revered American writer. Here the master storytellers Geoffrey Ward, Ken Burns, and Dayton Duncan give us the first fully illustrated biography of Mark Twain, American literature's touchstone, its funniest and most inventive figure. This book pulls together material from a variety of published and unpublished sources. It examines not merely his justly famous novels, stories, travelogues, and lectures, but also his diaries, letters, and 275 illustrations and photographs from throughout his life. The authors take us from Samuel Langhorne Clemens's boyhood in Hannibal, Missouri, to his time as a riverboat worker when he adopted the sobriquet "Mark Twain"to his varied careers as a newspaperman, printer, and author. They follow him from the home he built in Hartford, Connecticut, to his peripatetic travels across Europe, the Middle East, and the United States. We see Twain grieve over his favorite daughter's death, and we see him writing and noticing everything. Twain believed that "The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven." This paradox fueled his hilarity and lay at the core of this irreverent yet profoundly serious author.

Barbara Halliwell, on a grant at Oxford, receives an unexpected package-a memoir by a Korean crown princess, written more than two hundred years ago. A highly appropriate gift for her impending trip to Seoul. But from whom?.....

The premier work by a bright new talent, Divining Rod is a searing novel that examines those passions that move us to desperation and violence.On a blistering July morning in Alabama, Sam Holladay jabs a gun into the heart of his neighbor, Simon Bell, and pulls the trigger. His neighbors wonder how this benevolent schooteacher could turn into a killer, but Sam knows this tragedy was inevitable. Through a series of flashbacks, a story of complicated love and tender emotions is unveiled, chronicling the blossoming romance between Sam's reckless young bride, Delia, and the lonely, hapless Simon, and bringing the action full circle to the heartbreaking events of that fateful summer day.Michael Knight's innovative first novel is a gem that shines with the promise of a brilliant career for one of America's most gifted young authors.

In each story, characters are surprised by their mettle even as they recognize their fallibility; they are convinced of the power of love, family, and trust even as they experience the danger of obsession, anger, and simple accident. In the subtle romance "Birdland, " a beautiful ornithologist from up north does her best to deny the lure of a parrot-populated Alabama village and its resident driftwood carver. In the stylistically daring masterpiece "Killing Stonewall Jackson, " a rough band of Confederate soldiers contemplate the distant, fabled Stonewall Jackson, th man who has sent them to a hellish battlefield. Stirring tenderness in equal parts with grit, Michael Knight infuses his luminous new collection with graceful humor and uncommon empathy for the self-destructed.

In her singular voice "humble, elegiac, practical," Maxine Hong Kingston sets out to reflect on aging as she turns sixty-five. Kingston's swift, effortlessly flowing verse lines feel instantly natural in this fresh approach to the art of memoir, as she circles from present to past and back, from lunch with a writer friend to the funeral of a Vietnam veteran, from her long marriage ("can't divorce until we get it right. / Love, that is. Get love right") to her arrest at a peace march in Washington, where she and her "sisters" protested the Iraq war in the George W. Bush years. Kingston embraces Thoreau's notion of a "broad margin," hoping to expand her vista: "I'm standing on top of a hill; / I can see everywhichway" / the long way that I came, and the few / places I have yet to go. Treat / my whole life as if it were a day." On her journeys as writer, peace activist, teacher, and mother, Kingston revisits her most beloved characters: she learns the final fate of her Woman Warrior, and she takes her Tripmaster Monkey, a hip Chinese American, on a journey through China, where he has never been, a trip that becomes a beautiful meditation on the country then and now, on a culture where rice farmers still work in the age-old way, even as a new era is dawning. " All over China," she writes, "and places where Chinese are, populations / are on the move, going home. That home / where Mother and Father are buried. Doors / between heaven and earth open wide." Such is the spirit of this wonderful book; a sense of doors opening wide onto an American life of great purpose and joy, and the tonic wisdom of a writer we have come to cherish.
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2011 Opposing viewpoints book

From its Magic Kingdom theme parks to its udderless cows, the Walt Disney Company has successfully maintained itself as the brand name of conservative American family values. But the Walt Disney Company has also had a long and complex relationship to the gay and lesbian community that is only now becoming visible.InTinker Belles and Evil Queens, Sean Griffin traces the evolution of this interaction between the company and gay communities, from the 1930s use of Mickey Mouse as a code phrase for gay to the 1990s "Gay Nights" at the Magic Kingdom. Armed with first-person accounts from Disney audiences, Griffin demonstrates how Disney animation, live-action films, television series, theme parks, and merchandise provide varied motifs and characteristics that readily lend themselves to use by gay culture. But Griffin delves further to explore the role of gays and lesbians within the company, through an examination of the background of early studio personnel, an account of sexual activism within the firm, and the story of the company's own concrete efforts to give recognition to gay voices and desires.The first book to address the history of the gay community and Disney,Tinker Belles and Evil Queensbroadly examines the ambiguous legacy of how modern consumerism and advertising have affected the ways lesbians and gay men have expressed their sexuality. Disney itself is shown as sensitive to gay and lesbian audiences, while exploiting those same audiences as a niche market with strong buying power. Finally, Griffin demonstrates how queer audiences have co-opted Disney products for themselves-and in turn how Disney's corporate strategies have influenced our very definitions of sexuality.

Even after declaring its independence from aristocratic Europe, the United States retained the custom of using graphic devices to denote status in military and civil life. This extensively illustrated book explains the rules and practices of heraldry and presents hundreds of examples of official, corporate, and private emblems and orders.

With her perfect memory (and plenty of zip), ninety-five-year-old Ruth Gruber–adventurer, international correspondent, photographer, maker of (and witness to) history, responsible for rescuing hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees during World War II and after–tells her story in her own words and photographs.

An entertaining and poignant social history of McLean Hospital--a temporary home to many of the troubled geniuses of our age--and of the evolution of the treatment of mental illness from the early 19th century to today

Georgia Bottoms is known in her small community of Six Points, Alabama, as a beautiful, well-to-do, and devoutly Baptist Southern belle.

Nobody realizes that the family fortune has long since disappeared, and a determinedly single woman like Georgia needs an alternative, and discreet, means of income. In Georgia's case it is six well-heeled lovers-one for each day of the week, with Mondays off-none of whom knows about the others.

But when the married preacher who has been coming to call (Saturdays) decides to confess their affair in front of the whole congregation, Georgia must take drastic measures to stop him. In GEORGIA BOTTOMS, Mark Childress proves once again his unmistakable skill for combining the hilarious and the absurd to reveal the inner workings of the rebellious human heart.

One day Ackerman's husband, Paul West, an exceptionally gifted wordsmith and intellectual, suffered a terrible stroke. When he regained awareness he was afflicted with aphasia-loss of language-and could utter only a single syllable: "mem." The standard therapies yielded little result but frustration. Diane soon found, however, that by harnessing their deep knowledge of each other and her scientific understanding of language and the brain she could guide Paul back to the world of words. This triumphant book is both a humane and revealing addition to the medical literature on stroke and aphasia and an exquisitely written love story: a magnificent addition to literature, period.

During the Cold War era, space was an important arena for the clashing superpowers, yet the United States government chose not to station weapons there. Today, new space security dynamics are evolving that reflect the growing global focus upon the broad potential contributions of space capabilities to global prosperity and security. Space and Security: A Reference Handbook examines how the United States has developed and implemented policies designed to use space capabilities to enhance national security, providing a clear and complete evaluation of the origins and motivations for U.S. national security space policies and activities. The author explains the Eisenhower Administration's quest to develop high-technology intelligence collection platforms to open up the closed Soviet state, and why it focused on developing a legal regime to legitimize satellite overflight for the purposes of gathering intelligence.

Late in 1939 Editor Russell Hunt had a good idea. Why not dress up his foundrymen’s magazine with recipes by the ironworkers themselves? Many like him, were avid campers, hunters, and fishermen, or least backyard grill masters and cooks. As his magazine Pig Iron Rough Notes went all over the country and indeed into several foreign countries, Hunt was sure his readers would respond with enthusiasm. And they did. Over the next twenty years Pig Iron Rough Notes would sport 64 recipes from the South, Texas, the Midwest, Australia, all with the basic theme of outdoor cooking—and equipment made of iron! These unpretentious and hearty dishes are heavy on barbeque ( including three recipes for Brunswick stew, one designed to feed a crew of ten hungry ironworkers) and other grilling, but with unexpected surprises—a recipe for making Chinese-style tea shares space comfortably with a guide to muskrat stew. So pull up a grill, strap some meat to it, and enjoy.

Since biblical times, the Judeo-Christian lifestyle has centered on meals. Extending hospitality to both friends and strangers was a divine command, and an invitation to dine was sacred. The Judeo-Christian bible is peppered with stories of meals; these range from simple meals put together quickly in order to feed a few unexpected guests, to elaborate feasts carefully prepared to please dozens of partygoers for many days. Cooking with the Bible looks at eighteen of these meals found in the Scriptures, providing full menus and recipes for re-creating some of the dishes enjoyed by the peoples of biblical times. While describing how ancient cooks prepared their foods, Cooking with the Bible also explains how contemporary cooks might use modern techniques and appliances to prepare each of the eighteen meals. In addition, the authors recount the lore of all the ingredients used in the book, detailing their origins, the history of their cultivation, their nutritional value, and their various uses. To set the scene for each meal, the book examines the scriptural text in detail, describes the backstory for each, and, in the process, traces Judeo-Christian history from the ancient city of Ur to the lands of Egypt to the holy city of Jerusalem. Along the way, the reader will learn about the history of the bible itself. In the Middle East, eating was not and is not for daily sustenance alone--it is a way of life, and Cooking with the Bible reflects that reality, providing multiple feasts for the body, mind, and spirit.......

In this important book reconceiving the value and promise of reading, acclaimed author Edmundson dramatizes what the recent identity crisis of the humanities has effectively obscured: that reading can change your life for the better.

On March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City burst into flames. The factory was crowded. The doors were locked to ensure workers stay inside. One hundred forty-six people—mostly women—perished; it was one of the most lethal workplace fires in American history until September 11, 2001.

But the story of the fire is not the story of one accidental moment in time. It is a story of immigration and hard work to make it in a new country, as Italians and Jews and others traveled to America to find a better life. It is the story of poor working conditions and greedy bosses, as garment workers discovered the endless sacrifices required to make ends meet. It is the story of unimaginable, but avoidable, disaster. And it the story of the unquenchable pride and activism of fearless immigrants and women who stood up to business, got America on their side, and finally changed working conditions for our entire nation, initiating radical new laws we take for granted today.

With Flesh and Blood So Cheap, Albert Marrin has crafted a gripping, nuanced, and poignant account of one of America's defining tragedies.

One 11 year-old girl can make a difference-as budding ornithologist and artist Olivia Bouler has proven, single-handedly raising over $175,000 for the Gulf oil spill recovery. Devastated by the disaster and eager to do her part, Olivia wrote a letter to Audubon, “11 years old and willing to help” offering her own bird paintings to raise contributions for Gulf recovery efforts. The idea took flight, and Olivia proceeded to send out over 500 paintings, many of which are captured in this lavish picture book that recaps her valiant campaign to save birds affected by the spill....

Acclaimed naturalist and illustrator Jim Arnosky helps birds and imaginations take glorious flight in this breathtaking nonfiction picture book with six giant gatefolds.
Arnosky will draw out kids' inner explorer as he explains why there are no feathers on a vulture's head, which bird is the deep-diving champ, what makes an owls's wings perfectly silent in flight, and much more

This raw, moving novel follows two teenagers-one, a Mohawk-wearing 17-year-old violent misfit; the other, a gay 13-year-old cast out by his family, hustling on the streets and trying to survive. Acclaimed author Davida Wills Hurwin creates a riveting narrative told in alternating perspectives of their lives before and after the violent hate crime that changed both their futures. This tragic but ultimately inspirational journey of two polarized teens, their violent first meeting, and their peaceful reunion years later is an unforgettable story of survival and forgiveness.

This story is inspired by the real lives of Matthew Boger and Timothy Zaal, who have shared their story on The Oprah Winfrey Show and NPR.

Forty years after her death, Janis Joplin remains among the most compelling and influential figures in rock-and-roll history. Her story—told here with depth and sensitivity by author Ann Angel—is one of a girl who struggled against rules and limitations, yet worked diligently to improve as a singer. It’s the story of an outrageous rebel who wanted to be loved, and of a wild woman who wrote long, loving letters to her mom. And finally, it’s the story of one of the most iconic female musicians in American history, who died at twenty-seven.

Darkness falls…despair abounds…evil reigns…

Eragon and his dragon, Saphira, have just saved the rebel state from destruction by the mighty forces of King Galbatorix, cruel ruler of the Empire. Now Eragon must travel to Ellesmera, land of the elves, for further training in the skills of the Dragon Rider: magic and swordsmanship. Soon he is on the journey of a lifetime, his eyes open to awe-inspring new places and people, his days filled with fresh adventure. But chaos and betrayal plague him at every turn, and nothing is what it seems. Before long, Eragon doesn’t know whom he can trust.

Meanwhile, his cousin Roran must fight a new battle–one that might put Eragon in even graver danger.

Will the king’s dark hand strangle all resistance? Eragon may not escape with even his life. . . .

She could remember standing in a park near the falls, hypnotized by the sight and sound, and holding her father's hand as they took a walk that would lead them closer. That's what everyone wonders when they see Niagara . . . How close will their courage let them get to it?At the turn of the nineteenth century, a retired sixty-two-year-old charm school instructor named Annie Edson Taylor, seeking fame and fortune, decided to do something that no one in the world had ever done before she would go over Niagara Falls in a wooden barrel.Come meet the Queen of the Falls and witness with your own eyes her daring ride!

Following the colossal battle against the Empire’s warriors on the Burning Plains, Eragon and his dragon, Saphira, have narrowly escaped with their lives. Still there is more at hand for the Rider and his dragon, as Eragon finds himself bound by a tangle of promises he may not be able to keep. First is Eragon’s oath to his cousin Roran; to help rescue Roran’s beloved, Katrina, from King Galbatorix’s clutches. But Eragon owes his loyalty to others, too. The Varden are in desperate need of his talents and strength - as are the elves and dwarves. When unrest claims the rebels and danger strikes from every corner, Eragon must make choices - choices that take him across the Empire and beyond,