Search results for ""author sam"

Nancy’s sailing trip to Vermont turns into a hunt for a ghostly saboteur’s lost treasure in the twenty-fourth book in the Nancy Drew Diaries, a fresh approach to a classic series.When a family friend, Grace, opens a sailing club on Lake Champlain at the former site of the Gemstone Islands Resort, Nancy, Bess, and George are invited to enjoy a few days of boating before the club’s official grand opening. But when they arrive, they learn there have been some strange things happening on the property, from missing items to holes dug all over the yard. Is someone trying to sabotage the club, and could it have anything to do with the fire that destroyed the old resort twenty years ago? As Nancy tries to pry information from the tight-lipped locals, all clues lead back to Captain Richard Stone, the enigmatic Revolutionary War–era pirate whose tavern once stood on the same site as the resort and sailing club. Legend has it that Captain Stone’s ghost still haunts the property, guarding the treasure he buried there. But it isn’t a ghost that punches a hole in Nancy’s sailboat, leaving her and the girls to sink in the middle of the lake when an unexpected summer storm rolls in. Unraveling the mystery of Captain Stone’s treasure will be the key to finding out who’s been sabotaging Grace’s club. But first, Nancy and her friends will have to make it back to shore in one piece…

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Ten years after Alex and Aaron Stowe brought peace to Quill and Artimé, their younger twin sisters journey beyond Artimé in the sixth novel in the New York Times bestselling sequel series to The Unwanteds, which Kirkus Reviews called “The Hunger Games meets Harry Potter.”As the greatest army ever assembled in the seven islands flies to the land of the dragons, everyone’s mind is haunted by the same thought: Thisbe Stowe betrayed them all. Thisbe struggles to regain the trust of her brother Aaron and the people of Artimé after one crucial mistake forces her to abandon her intricate plan against the Revinir. Aaron is devastated by Thisbe’s actions and refuses to hear her explanation, feeling a sense of responsibility for the wrong she’s done mixed with his own deep regret and fears over his dark history. Complicating things are Thisbe’s conflicted feelings about the Revinir, leaving her wondering if she allowed herself to get too close to the dragon-woman…and if she really is more evil than good after all. Risking everything they’d fought for since first being declared Unwanted, the people, creatures, and statues of Artimé and their allies make a final desperate attempt to take down the Revinir and bring peace to their world. But is the Revinir too powerful to defeat? And...will the Artiméans ever find out what’s behind that last secret door?

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In the nineteenth century the War Office showed little interest in developing large heavy artillery for its land forces, preferring instead to equip its warships with the biggest guns. Private initiatives to mount a gun on a railway truck pulled by a steam engine were demonstrated before military chiefs in the Southern Counties, but not taken up. However, the development of longer-range guns, weighing up to 250 tons, to smash through the massive armies and trench systems on the Western Front in 1916, led to a rethink. The only way to move these monsters about quickly in countryside thick with mud was to mount them on specially built railway trucks towed by locomotives. The railway guns were to be put on little-used country lines where they could fire on beaches, road junctions and harbours. The locations and cooperation given by the independent railway companies is explained, as are the difficulties of using the same lines for war and civilian traffic. The First World War also saw the emergence of large training camps for railway men. When the war ended most railway guns were dismantled and lost in ordnance depots.The Army Council was uncertain about artillery needs in a future war, so training, and development stopped. This book largely concentrates on the realities of the time, the type of gun, the locomotives, artillery targets, locations, and what it was like when firing took place. It is fully illustrated with pictures, maps and plans covering different aspects of railway guns their locomotives and equipment.

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With a foreword by Jane Goodall, this moving memoir follows a successful journalist and filmmaker who felt like something was missing in her life as she finds her purpose in advocacy for the Asian elephants in her childhood home town of Kerala, India."The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." - Mahatma GandhiElephants are self-aware, conscious beings. They can feel and grieve the loss of both elephants and humans. But despite all empathy that elephants shower on humans, we continue to inflict pain and suffering on these caring, sentient beings.In 2013 Sangita Iyer visited her childhood home of Kerala, India. Over 700 Asian elephants live in Kerala, owned by individuals and temples that force them to perform in lengthy, crowded, noisy festivals, abusing and shackling these animals they claim to revere for tourists and money.When Sangita found herself in the presence of these divine creatures and witnessed their suffering first hand, she felt a deep connection to their pain. She too had been shackled and broken for too long-to her patriarchal upbringing in India, to the many "me too" moments in her work life that were swept under the rug, to the silence. Now she would speak out for the elephants and for herself. And she would heal alongside them.This sparked the creation of her award winning documentary of the same name and a new purpose in this life for both Sangita and the elephants.

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For nearly twenty-five years, Mildred Council--better known by her nickname, Mama Dip--has nourished thousands of hungry folks in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Her restaurant, Mama Dip's Kitchen, is a much-loved community institution that has gained loyal fans and customers from all walks of life, from New York Times food writer Craig Claiborne to former Tar Heel basketball player Michael Jordan. Mama Dip's Kitchen showcases the same down-home, wholesome, everyday Southern cooking for which its namesake restaurant is celebrated. The book features more than 250 recipes for such favorites as old-fashioned chicken pie, country-style pork chops, sweet potatoes, fresh corn casserole, poundcake, and banana pudding. Chapters cover breads and breakfast dishes; poultry, fish, and seafood; beef, pork, and lamb; vegetables and salads; and desserts, beverages, and party dishes. The book opens with a charming introductory essay, a savory reflection on a life in cooking that also reveals the story behind Council's nickname. It is both a graceful reminiscence of a country childhood and the inspiring story of a woman determined to make her own way in the larger world. |Mildred Council presents more than 260 recipes from her Chapel Hill restaurant, Mama Dip's Kitchen, one of N.C.'s most popular spots for comfort food, southern style (or downhome Southern food). She also shares the secrets of her famous ""dump"" cooking and offers a graceful essay about her lifelong adventures with food.

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In the 1970s, Madeleine Blais's in-laws purchased a vacation house on Martha's Vineyard for the exorbitant sum of $80,000. A little more than two miles down a poorly marked one-lane dirt road, the house was better termed a shack--it had no electricity or modern plumbing, the roof leaked, and mice had invaded the walls. It was perfect. Sitting on Tisbury Great Pond--well-stocked with oysters and crab for foraged dinners--the house faced the ocean and the sky, and though it was eventually replaced by a sturdier structure, the ethos remained the same: no heat, no TV, and no telephone. Instead, there were countless hours at the beach, meals cooked and savored with friends, nights talking under the stars, until in 2014, the house was sold. To the New Owners is Madeleine Blais's charming, evocative memoir of this house, and of the Vineyard itself--from the history of the island and its famous visitors to the ferry, the pie shops, the quirky charms and customs, and the abundant natural beauty. But more than that, this is an elegy for a special place. Many of us have one place that anchors our most powerful memories. For Blais, it was the Vineyard house--a retreat and a dependable pleasure that also measured changes in her family. As children were born and grew up, as loved ones aged and passed away, the house was a constant. And now, the house lives on in the hearts of those who cherished it, signifying endless summer.

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"Property rights" and "Russia" do not usually belong in the same sentence. Rather, our general image of the nation is of insecurity of private ownership and defenselessness in the face of the state. Many scholars have attributed Russia's long-term development problems to a failure to advance property rights for the modern age and blamed Russian intellectuals for their indifference to the issues of ownership. A Public Empire refutes this widely shared conventional wisdom and analyzes the emergence of Russian property regimes from the time of Catherine the Great through World War I and the revolutions of 1917. Most importantly, A Public Empire shows the emergence of the new practices of owning "public things" in imperial Russia and the attempts of Russian intellectuals to reconcile the security of property with the ideals of the common good. The book analyzes how the belief that certain objects--rivers, forests, minerals, historical monuments, icons, and Russian literary classics--should accede to some kind of public status developed in Russia in the mid-nineteenth century. Professional experts and liberal politicians advocated for a property reform that aimed at exempting public things from private ownership, while the tsars and the imperial government employed the rhetoric of protecting the sanctity of private property and resisted attempts at its limitation. Exploring the Russian ways of thinking about property, A Public Empire looks at problems of state reform and the formation of civil society, which, as the book argues, should be rethought as a process of constructing "the public" through the reform of property rights.

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This collection of leading scholars presents reflections on both wisdom as a general concept throughout history and cultures, as well as the contested nature of the category of Wisdom Literature. The first half of the collection explores wisdom more generally with essays on its relationship to skill, epistemology, virtue, theology, and order. Wisdom is examined in a number of different contexts, such as historically in the Hebrew Bible and its related cultures, in Egypt and Mesopotamia, as well as in Patristic and Rabbinic interpretation. Additionally, wisdom is examined in its continuing relevance in Islamic, Jewish, and Christian thought, as well as from feminist, environmental, and other contextual perspectives. The second half of the volume considers "Wisdom Literature" as a category. Scholars address its relation to the Solomonic Collection, its social setting, literary genres, chronological development, and theology. Wisdom Literature's relation to other biblical literature (law, history, prophecy, apocalyptic, and the broad question of "Wisdom influence") is then discussed before separate chapters on the texts commonly associated with the category. Contributors take a variety of approaches to the current debates surrounding the viability and value of Wisdom Literature as a category and its proper relationship to the concept of wisdom in the Hebrew Bible. Though the organization of the volume highlights the independence of wisdom as concept from "Wisdom Literature" as a category, seeking to counter the lack of attention given to this question in the traditional approach, the inclusion of both topics together in the same volume reflects their continued interconnection. As such, this handbook both represents the current state of Wisdom scholarship and sets the stage for future developments.

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In Nothing Like a Dame, theater journalist Eddie Shapiro opens a jewelry box full of glittering surprises, through in-depth conversations with twenty leading women of Broadway. He carefully selected Tony Award-winning stars who have spent the majority of their careers in theater, leaving aside those who have moved on or occasionally drop back in. The women he interviewed spent endless hours with him, discussing their careers, offering insights into the iconic shows, changes on Broadway over the last century, and the art (and thrill) of taking the stage night after night. Chita Rivera describes the experience of starring in musicals in each of the last seven decades; Audra McDonald gives her thoughts on the work that went into the five Tony Awards she won before turning forty-one; and Carol Channing reflects on how she has revisited the same starring role generation after generation, and its effects on her career. Here too is Sutton Foster, who contemplates her breakout success in an age when stars working predominately in theater are increasingly rare. Each of these conversations is guided by Shapiro's expert knowledge of these women's careers, Broadway lore, and the details of famous (and infamous) musicals. He also includes dozens of photographs of these players in their best-known roles. This fascinating collection reveals the artistic genius and human experience of the women who have made Broadway musicals more popular than ever -- a must for anyone who loves the theater.

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From Frederick Law Olmsted to Richard Neutra, Michelle Obama to our neighbors, Americans throughout history have revealed something of themselves - their personalities, desires, and beliefs - in the gardens they create. Monticello's gardens helped Jefferson reconcile his conflicted feelings about slavery - and take his mind off his increasing debt. Edith Wharton's gardens made her feel more European and superior to her wealthy but insufficiently sophisticated countrymen. Martha Stewart's how-to instructions helped bring Americans back into their gardens, while at the same time stoking and exploiting our anxieties about social class. Melding biography, history, and cultural commentary in a one-of-a-kind narrative, "American Eden" presents a dynamic, sweeping look at this country's landscapes and the visionaries behind them. "American Eden" offers an inclusive definition of the garden, considering intentional landscapes that range from domestic kitchen gardens to city parks and national parks, suburban backyards and golf courses, public plazas and Manhattan's High Line park, reclaimed from freight train tracks. And it exposes the overlap between garden-making and painting, literature, and especially architecture-the garden's inseparable sibling-to reveal the deep interconnections between the arts and their most inspired practitioners. Beautifully illustrated with color and black-and-white images, "American Eden" is at once a different kind of garden book and a different kind of American history, one that offers a compelling, untold story-a saga that mirrors and illuminates our nation's invention, and constant reinvention, of itself.

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This book celebrates binocular vision by presenting illustrations that require two eyes to see the effects of cooperation and competition between them. Pictures are flat but by printing them in different colours and viewing them through similarly coloured filters (included with the hardcover book) they are brought to life either in stereoscopic depth or in rivalry with one another. They are called anaglyphs and all those in the book display the ways in which the eyes interact. Thus, the reader is an integral element in the book and not all readers will see the same things. The history, science and art of binocular vision can be experienced in ways that are not usually available to us and with images made specifically for this book. The study of vision with two eyes was transformed by the invention of stereoscopes in the early 19th century. Anaglyphs are simple forms of stereoscopes that have three possible outcomes from viewing them – with each eye alone to see the monocular images, with both eyes to see them in stereoscopic depth or rivalry, or without the red/cyan glasses where they can have an appeal independent of the binocularity they encompass. Through the binocular pictures and the words that accompany them there will be an appreciation of just how remarkable the processes are that yield binocular singleness and depth. Moreover, the opportunities for expressing these processes are explored with many examples of truly binocular art.

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To the impartial observer Britain does not appear to have any mountains. Yet the British invented the sport of mountain climbing and for two periods in history British climbers led the world in the pursuit of this beautiful and dangerous obsession. Unjustifiable Risk is the story of the social, economic and cultural conditions that gave rise to the sport, and the achievements and motives of the scientists and poets, parsons and anarchists, villains and judges, ascetics and drunks that have shaped its development over the past two hundred years. The history of climbing inevitably reflects the wider changes that have occurred in British society, including class, gender, nationalism and war, but the sport has also contributed to changing social attitudes to nature and beauty, heroism and death. Over the years, increasing wealth, leisure and mobility have gradually transformed climbing from an activity undertaken by an eccentric and privileged minority into a sub-division of the leisure and tourist industry, while competition, improved technology and information, and increasing specialisation have helped to create climbs of unimaginable difficulty at the leading edge of the sport. But while much has changed, even more has remained the same. Today's climbers would be instantly recognisable to their Victorian predecessors, with their desire to escape from the crowded complexity of urban society and willingness to take "unjustifiable" risk in pursuit of beauty, adventure and self-fulfilment. Unjustifiable Risk was shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker prize in 2011.

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This is a revised and updated edition of the highly successful first and second editions. In the intervening period the procedures used in the description of soils and rocks have continued to develop and evolve and this new edition incorporates changes in the international standards EN ISO 14688 and 14689 and those resulting in the national standard, BS 5930:2015 and the 2020 amendment thereof. Close comparison is also made with US practice in description (ASTM D2488) and classification (ASTM D2487). Significant changes in rock description are included – the reintroduction of the Approaches 1 to 5 for rock weathering; Approach 1 for description and Approaches 2 to 5 (Rock Weathering Working Party) for classification when appropriate and helpful. Also covered is the reintroduction of the 12.5 MPa boundary and the term moderately weak in rock strength description: a significant boundary in design in rock. The book continues to provide invaluable practical guidance in carrying out engineering geological logging of soil and rock samples and exposures in the field. The systematic and codified approach is laid out in detail to ensure the defined descriptors are used in a consistent format, rendering mistakes less likely and the necessary communication from field to design more successful. The procedures, techniques and tips within this book continue to serve and guide young practitioners learning their craft, but also their seniors and mentors, including responsible experts who sign off the logs and report on behalf of their company. More than ever, the need to be aware of current practices in order in order to avoid costly mistakes is paramount.

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A collection of five extraordinary plays exploring and reflecting contemporary life across the Near East and North Africa. In Withdrawal by Mohammad Al Attar (Syria), Ahmad and Nour rent a flat so that they can spend time together away from their families, but is having a space to themselves going to solve all their problems? In 603 by Imad Farajin (Palestine), four Palestinian men share a cramped prison cell listening to the buses come and go outside. Will the next bus be the one to take them home? In Damage by Kamal Khalladi (Morocco), three weeks after Youssef and Sana’a’s wedding, Youssef accepts a military peacekeeping expedition in the Congo. Will either of them be the same people when he returns? In The House by Arzé Khodr (Lebanon), Nadia wants to remain in the house she grew up in. For her sister, Reem, it is filled with painful memories. Are their differences over the future of the house irreconcilable? In Egyptian Products by Laila Soliman (Egypt), Hadia is an independent woman in Cairo. Gasir is a painfully awkward lab assistant with attachment issues over his dead mother. Is he really her knight in shining armour? In 2007 the Royal Court Theatre’s International Department and the British Council embarked on an ambitious project working with twenty-one writers from across the Near East and North Africa. Seven of the resultant plays received rehearsed readings at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 2008. This volume, introduced by Laila Hourani of the British Council, collects five of these unique new voices, each posing different but equally urgent questions.

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Evading the wrath of company lawyers zealously protecting their franchise, Robert Antoni’s novel, written partially in film-script form, pays fan-fiction homage to that famous simian brand, whilst at the same time deconstructing the saga for what it has to say about race in the film and in American society. Austin Stoker – a character based on a real-life Trinidadian actor in Hollywood – is shooting the sequel to Assault of the Civilization of the Simians in his old age, the Hollywood film that launched his moderately successful acting career. But Stoker, drinking back-home Trinidadian remedies but not taking his prescribed dementia medicine, finds separating reality from fiction to be an increasingly difficult task.Intercut with this film script and the often funny backstory of the ageing actors’ lives is a moving novella about Austin’s mother, Madeleine, a servant in a rich French Creole house in Trinidad in the 1940s, and her affair with Austin’s white father, Barto, a colonial narrative that is in its own way as much about a vanishing fantasy life as the world of Hollywood.There’s still another layer, which readers of Antoni’s Bocas prize-winning As Flies to Whatless Boys will anticipate with pleasure: the presence of wickedly comic metatextual authorial notes and commentary. Cut Guavas is written in a spirit of fun that nevertheless makes serious points about race in the New World imagination. A master storyteller, Antoni combines its multiple strands in a way that feels both effortless and seamless.

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Global social inequality has declined over the past 100 years and the gap between different parts of the world, measured by average lifespan, has narrowed. The internal gap between wealthy and poor in the western world has likewise reduced, from the 1930s to the 1970s, although not in a linear way. The 1980s represented a turning point in developed countries, as the top 0.1% of income earners accumulated extraordinary riches. This new trend did not subside with the financial crisis of 2008, but expanded to less developed areas of the world; indeed, long-term significant reduction of poverty is now considered vulnerable. Inequality of income and its associated impacts has triggered a passionate debate between those who maintain that an unequal accumulation of richness is crucial for economic and social progress and those who believe that it does not encourage investment and that it prevents increased demand, thus negatively affecting the economy. This contributed volume sets out to study social inequality in Portuguese-speaking countries, thus providing diversification of experience across different continents. The purpose is to identify major economic, historical and cultural developments in terms of education, health, life-cycle, gender, ethnic, and religious relations. The current realities of migration are also addressed, since they raise the issue of ethnic integration. This is the first published work to address inequality in a cross-continent yet same language perspective, and presents a striking advance in the global study of inequality.

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Saudi Arabia and Iraq have a shared history, as both friends and enemies at one and the same time, and their growth as modern nation-states must be understood in that joint context. This book establishes a new narrative and timeline for bilateral relations between the two countries, while examining the work of other Arab and Western scholars, in order to excavate the biases underlying so much previous work on this topic. In doing so, it proposes a new way of looking at state formation and boundaries in the Middle East, by showing how the interactions of regional neighbors left an indelible imprint on the domestic politics of one another. The two different visions for managing the border that Saudi Arabia and Iraq developed in the 1920s generated mistrust on both sides, leading to a gradual process of estrangement that lasted through the 1950s and beyond. Ibn Saud made strenuous efforts to preserve the socio-economic ties that united the communities of southern Iraq with the Najd and, in turn, those efforts helped encourage a wave of Sunni Arab migrants from Iraq who helped build the Saudi state. Iraqi politicians and clerics attempted to use the issue of Ikhwan raids as a rallying cry for promoting their political agendas, thereby contributing to a growing sectarian discourse and undermining the nationalist rhetoric of the 1920 Revolution. The two countries had a remarkable and long-lasting impact on one another, even as they drifted farther and farther apart through mutual fear and suspicion.

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In theory, the Internet allows all brands to market internationally. But in practice, most companies struggle to compete outside their home market. Written from a marketing practitioner's perspective, International Brand Strategy evens the playing field with clear, actionable techniques to guide any organization going through the process. This book helps companies build sales in foreign markets, but just as important it helps them thrive by maintaining price integrity and building brand equity at the same time. With the guidance provided in International Brand Strategy companies hit the ground running in foreign markets. This provides a competitive advantage from day one, empowers companies to avoid costly mistakes, and saves months of trial and error. The book lays out a unique methodology for managing brands abroad that can be implemented for any product in any market. These methods have proven their value for companies large and small across six continents. The book guides readers with pragmatic models and a wealth of examples from global companies such as Target Canada, Unilever and Apple. International Brand Strategy was written for those who are planning to enter a new market and for those who are already there but wish to improve their brand's performance. It helps the reader recognize some of the most common pitfalls and how to avoid them, provides practical tips to understand the dynamics of price, product and value from a foreign buyer's perspective, and defines a conceptual framework to assess and improve brand equity at home and abroad.

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So here it is... The perfect gift for music lovers of all ages, The Official Christmas No. 1 Singles Book is jam-packed with facts, figures and photos to get your toes tapping along to the sounds of seven decades of festive chart-toppers. Have you ever wondered how many Christmas number ones actually have the word 'Christmas' in their title? Or how many TV talent-show winners have claimed the festive top spot? Do you know which artist has racked up the most Christmas number ones? Or which single is the biggest-selling seasonal chart-topper of all time? Can you name the only song to have topped the Christmas chart twice by two different artists? Or the only artist to have been Christmas number one twice with the same song? The answers to all these questions - plus many more - can be found in this exclusive festive companion, published in conjunction with the Official Charts Company. With a fully illustrated double-page spread for every year since the UK singles chart began in 1952, Michael Mulligan's fun and authoritative journey through the Christmas archives will delight curious browsers and dedicated pop nerds alike. Featuring top-ten countdowns, fascinating trivia about the highest-charting Christmas singles and plenty of entertaining infographics, this is the ideal family stocking-filler, celebrating all that is wonderful, whimsical and unpredictable about the festive season's most hotly contested musical event.

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This timely book presents a wide range of quantitative methods, including complex network analysis and econometric modelling, to illustrate how the Internet both follows, and at the same time challenges, more traditional geographies.Emmanouil Tranos explores the spatiality of the Internet, its physical infrastructure, and the geographic and socio-economic factors that shape its spatial distribution. He shows that although the Internet is a technical system with strong topological attributes, an almost 'hidden' spatial dimension also exists. The scattering of Internet Backbone Networks across European city-regions is compared with the aviation network in order to better understand the topology of the digital infrastructure. Finally, a causality analysis demonstrates the significant positive effect of the Internet infrastructure in the economic development of regions characterized by high absorptive capacity.This book will prove a highly fascinating read for those with an interest in Internet geographies, ICTs, regional development and infrastructure, digital economy, network analysis, and regional science. Practitioners working on local and regional development, as well as those focusing on ICTs, digital economy and smart cities, will also find this book to be an invaluable reference tool.Contents: Preface 1. Introduction 2. The Fundamentals of the Internet Infrastructure: A Cross-discipline Review 3. Methodology and Research Framework 4. The Network Nature of the Internet Infrastructure 5. Internet Backbone and Aviation Networks: A Comparative Study 6. An Explanatory Analysis of the (Unequal) Distribution of the Internet Backbone Networks 7. Internet Infrastructure and Regional Economic Development: A Causality Analysis 8. Conclusions References Index

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Nicholas Hawksmoor (1662-1736) is considered one of Britain's greatest architects. He was involved in the grandest architectural projects of his age and today is best known for his London churches - six idiosyncratic edifices of white Portland stone that remain standing today, proud and tall in the otherwise radically changed cityscape. Until comparatively recently, however, Hawksmoor was thought to be, at best, a second-rate talent: merely Sir Christopher Wren's slightly odd apprentice, or the practically minded assistant to Sir John Vanbrugh. This book brings to life the dramatic story of Hawksmoor's resurrection from the margins of history.Charting Hawksmoor's career and the decline of his reputation, Owen Hopkins offers fresh interpretations of many of his famous works - notably his three East End churches - and shows how over their history Hawksmoor's buildings have been ignored, abused, altered, recovered and celebrated. Hopkins also charts how, as Hawksmoor returned to prominenceduring the twentieth century, his work caught the eye of observers as diverse as T. S.Eliot, James Stirling, Robert Venturi and, most famously, Peter Ackroyd, whose novel Hawksmoor (1985) popularized 12 the mythical association of his work with the occult. Meanwhile, passionate campaigns were mounted to save and restore Hawksmoor's churches, reflecting the strange hold his architecture can have over observers. There is surely no other body of work in British architectural history with the same capacity to intrigue and inspire, perplex and provoke as Hawksmoor's has done for nearly three centuries.

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With turquoise waters, dreamlike islands, and pristine rainforests, Belize is a sensory feast. Dive in with Moon Belize. Inside you'll find:*Flexible itineraries, from the weeklong best of Belize to three weeks exploring the whole country *Strategic advice for water sports lovers, foodies, wildlife enthusiasts, and more, plus suggestions for supporting local businesses and exploring ethically and sustainably*The top outdoor adventures: Hike rainforests filled with medicinal trees and howler monkeys, snorkel the second-largest coral reef in the world, go spelunking in ancient underground caves, or hop through the vibrant cayes*Unique experiences and can't-miss highlights: Canoe to a farmers market to sample fresh pupusas and cashew wine, and cool off beneath the waterfalls. Marvel at Mayan archaeological sites or experience a traditional homestay in Punta Gorda. Relax on the beach all day, and spend your night dancing barefoot in the sand to the sound of Garifuna drums*Honest advice on when to go, what to pack, and where to stay, from Belize expert Lebawit Lily Girma*Full-colour photos and detailed maps throughout*Essential background on the landscape, climate, wildlife, and culture, plus handy phrases in Kriol, Garifuna, and Q'eqchi' Mayan*Helpful recommendations for health and safety, travelling solo, and suggestions for LGBTQ visitors, travellers with disabilities, and seniorsExperience the best of Belize with Moon's expert tips and local insight.Looking to expand your trip? Try Moon Yucatán Peninsula or Moon Costa Rica.

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As public schools in low income areas fell into disrepair and failed to meet the needs of disadvantaged and minority students, charter schools offered an alternative. These schools were born out of the idea that low income families should be allowed to choose where their children went to school, just the same as high income families. If the public school in the community was unsatisfactory, shouldn't they be allowed to seek out an alternative? The alternatives are surprisingly effective. Charter schools located in low income black and Latinx communities achieve results surpassing both traditional public schools in their areas, and also, in many cases, public schools in more affluent neighbourhoods. In Charter Schools and Their Enemies, celebrated conservative intellectual Thomas Sowell explores the surprising success of this model and the surprising backlash that threatens to dismantle it.Instead of being celebrated for their successes, charter schools are caught in political crosscurrents. In addition to uncovering the success of the charter school movement, Sowell pays careful attention to its adversaries to understand how these schools became such a contentious issue and why the controversy rages on. Teachers' unions, fearful of their hold over government-funded education, fund political candidates to oppose the charter school movement. Liberal educators also oppose charter schools, Sowell argues, because they believe that the school system should indoctrinate the young in progressive politics.Deeply researched and amply documented, Charter Schools and Their Enemies is essential reading for anyone concerned with debates over education in America.

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A Los Angeles Times Best Seller A 2020 NPR Best Book of the Year Is there life after baseball? Starting from this simple question, The Wax Pack ends up with something much bigger and unexpected—a meditation on the loss of innocence and the gift of impermanence, for both Brad Balukjian and the former ballplayers he tracked down. To get a truly random sample of players, Balukjian followed this wildly absurd but fun-as-hell premise: he took a single pack of baseball cards from 1986 (the first year he collected cards), opened it, chewed the nearly thirty-year-old gum inside, gagged, and then embarked on a quest to find all the players in the pack. On Balukjian’s trip in the summer of 2015, he spanned 11,341 miles through thirty states in forty-eight days. Actively engaging with his subjects, he took a hitting lesson from Rance Mulliniks, watched kung fu movies with Garry Templeton, and went to the zoo with Don Carman. In the process of finding all the players but one, he discovered an astonishing range of experiences and untold stories in their post-baseball lives. While crisscrossing the country, Balukjian retraced his own past, reconnecting with lost loves and coming to terms with his lifelong battle with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Alternately elegiac and uplifting, The Wax Pack is part baseball nostalgia, part road trip travelogue, and all heart, a reminder that greatness is not found in the stats on the backs of baseball cards but in the personal stories of the men on the front of them.

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Winner, LGBT Studies Lammy Award presented by Lambda Literary Neither queer theory nor queer activism has fully reckoned with the role of race in the emergence of the modern gay subject. In A Taste for Brown Bodies, Hiram Pérez traces the development of gay modernity and its continued romanticization of the brown body. Focusing in particular on three figures with elusive queer histories—the sailor, the soldier, and the cowboy— Pérez unpacks how each has been memorialized and desired for their heroic masculinity while at the same time functioning as agents for the expansion of the US borders and neocolonial zones of influence. Describing an enduring homonationalism dating to the “birth” of the homosexual in the late 19th century, Pérez considers not only how US imperialist expansion was realized, but also how it was visualized for and through gay men. By means of an analysis of literature, film, and photographs from the 19th to the 21st centuries—including Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, Anne Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain,” and photos of abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison—Pérez proposes that modern gay male identity, often traced to late Victorian constructions of “invert” and “homosexual,” occupies not the periphery of the nation but rather a cosmopolitan position, instrumental to projects of war, colonialism, and neoliberalism. A Taste for Brown Bodies argues that practices and subjectivities that we understand historically as forms of homosexuality have been regulated and normalized as an extension of the US nation-state, laying bare the tacit, if complex, participation of gay modernity within US imperialism.

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An intimate look at gay and bisexual daddies and their younger partners Over the past several years the term “daddy” has increased in popularity. Although the term has existed for centuries, its meaning has changed over time, and today can refer to desirable older men. In the Western world, same-sex male couples are far more likely to have large age gaps than other types of partnerships, and Daddies of a Different Kind analyzes the stories of gay and bisexual daddies and asks why younger men are interested in older men for sex and relationships. Based on interviews with self-described daddies and young adult men in relationships with older men, Tony Silva uncovers why it is more common for gay and bisexual men to have large age gaps in relationships than heterosexuals or LGBTQ women. These stories reveal that queer relationships with large age gaps are not consistent with a sugar daddy/gold digger stereotype. Instead, daddies mentor younger adult men and transmit knowledge intergenerationally, including how to navigate homophobia, access gay communities, and have fulfilling sex. Silva shows that demographic research understates the commonality of age-gap pairings among gay and bisexual men, and illustrates how daddies shape gay and bisexual communities both culturally and sexually. A fascinating read, Daddies of a Different Kind breaks many commonly held stereotypes about gay and bisexual life.

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Television conveys powerful messages about sexual identities, and popular shows such as Will & Grace, Ellen, Glee, Modern Family, and The Fosters are often credited with building support for gay rights, including marriage equality. At the same time, however, many dismiss TV’s portrayal of LGBT characters and issues as “gay for pay”—that is, apolitical and exploitative programming created simply for profit. In The New Gay for Pay, Julia Himberg moves beyond both of these positions to investigate the complex and multifaceted ways that television production participates in constructing sexuality, sexual identities and communities, and sexual politics.Himberg examines the production stories behind explicitly LGBT narratives and characters, studying how industry workers themselves negotiate processes of TV development, production, marketing, and distribution. She interviews workers whose views are rarely heard, including market researchers, public relations experts, media advocacy workers, political campaigners designing strategies for TV messaging, and corporate social responsibility department officers, as well as network executives and producers. Thoroughly analyzing their comments in the light of four key issues—visibility, advocacy, diversity, and equality—Himberg reveals how the practices and belief systems of industry workers generate the conceptions of LGBT sexuality and political change that are portrayed on television. This original approach complicates and broadens our notions about who makes media; how those practitioners operate within media conglomerates; and, perhaps most important, how they contribute to commonsense ideas about sexuality.

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Explores the lives of over 600 Jewish physicians and pharmacists in medieval Muslim lands Offers a unique insight into the life of Jewish physicians and pharmacists, their families and communities in medieval Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, North Africa, Sicily and Andalusia Shows how Jewish practitioners participated in community leadership, in hospitals and in the courts of the Muslim rulers Analyses the biographical data to provide information on the relationships among Jews, Muslims and Christians, and between the common people and the elite Includes 6 maps, 29 family trees of key dynasties and 10 tables of main periods and dynasties, main Muslim rulers, practitioners serving in courts and hospitals, converts to Islam, Karaite and Samaritan practitioners This book collects and analyses the available biographical data on Jewish medical practitioners in the Muslim world from the 9th to the 16th century. The biographies are based mainly on information gathered from the wealth of primary sources found in the Cairo Geniza (letters, commercial documents, court orders, lists of donors) and Muslim Arabic sources (biographical dictionaries, historical and geographical literature). The practitioners come from various socio-economic strata and lived in urban as well as rural locations in Muslim countries. Both the biographies and the accompanying discussion shed light on various views and aspects of the medicine practised in this period by Muslim, Jews and Christians, as well as issues such as professional, daily and personal lives; successes and failures; families; Jewish communities; and inter-religious affairs.

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An ambitious revisionist history of naturalization as a creative mechanism for national expansion.Before borders determined who belonged in a country and who did not, lawyers and judges devised a legal fiction called naturalization to bypass the idea of feudal allegiance and integrate new subjects into their nations. At the same time, writers of prose fiction were attempting to undo centuries of rules about who could—and who could not—be a subject of literature. In Before Borders, Stephanie DeGooyer reconstructs how prose and legal fictions came together in the eighteenth century to dramatically reimagine national belonging through naturalization. The bureaucratic procedure of naturalization today was once a radically fictional way to create new citizens and literary subjects.Through early modern court proceedings, the philosophy of John Locke, and the novels of Daniel Defoe, Laurence Sterne, Maria Edgeworth, and Mary Shelley, DeGooyer follows how naturalization evolved in England against the backdrop of imperial expansion. Political and philosophical proponents of naturalization argued that granting foreigners full political and civil rights would not only attract newcomers but also better attach them to English soil. However, it would take a new literary form—the novel—to fully realize this liberal vision of immigration. Together, these experiments in law and literature laid the groundwork for an alternative vision of subjecthood in England and its territories.Reading eighteenth-century legal and prose fiction, DeGooyer draws attention to an overlooked period of immigration history and compels readers to reconsider the creative potential of naturalization.

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In sixty-eight years, Valeria has never minced her words. Harrumphing through her isolated little village deep in the Hungarian steppes, she clutches her shopping basket like a battering ram and leaves nothing uncriticised - flaccid vegetables at the market; idle farmers carousing in Ibolya's Nonstop Tavern; that gauche chimpanzee of a mayor and his flashy, leggy wife; people who whistle. But one day, her spinster's heart is struck by an unlikely arrow: the village potter, with his decisive hands and solid gaze. Valeria finds herself suddenly dressing in florals and touching her hair, and what's more, smiling at people in the street. The potter makes her the most beautiful vase she has ever seen. The farmers buy a celebratory round. The problem with all this is that Ibolya (herself at least fifty-eight) has been romancing the potter for months and vows to win him back. And then there's Ferenc, the sugar beet farmer, red-headed and married but all the same hopelessly in love with Ibolya. Meanwhile the mayor has his own problems, mostly involving foreign investors and a non-existent railway. And then a roving chimney sweep arrives in the village, to make a quick buck and bring some good luck - or perhaps bad luck; no one can really decide. All anyone knows is, there's never been such a hullabaloo, which just goes to show it's never too late to try something new.

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How to Read the Victorian Novel provides a unique introduction to the genre. Using examples from the classics, like The Pickwick Papers, David Copperfield, Jane Eyre, The Woman in White, and Middlemarch, it demonstrates just how unfamiliar their familiarity is. The book attempts to break free of the sense that the Victorian novel is somehow old fashioned, moralizing, and formally careless by emphasizing the complexity, difficulty, and rare pleasures of the Victorian writers’ strenuous efforts both to entertain and to teach; to create serious “art” and to appeal to wide audiences; to respond both to the demands of publishing and also to their own rich imaginative engagement with a world heading into modernity at full speed. Broad in its scope, the text surveys a wide variety of literary types and explores the cultural and historical developments of the novel form itself. The book also poses a series of “big questions” pertaining to money, capitalism, industry, race, gender, and, at the same time, to formal issues, such as plotting, perspective, and realist representation. In addition, it locates the qualities that give to the great variety of Victorian novels a “family resemblance,” the material conditions of their production, their tendency to multiply plots, their obsession with class and money, their problematic handling of gender questions, and their commitment to realist representation. How to Read the Victorian Novel challenges our comfortable expectations of the genre in order to explore intensively a burgeoning and changing literary form which mirrors a burgeoning and changing society.

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'The perfect sinisterly magical escape' Stephanie GarberCaraval meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer in this deliciously dark young adult fantasy about a girl who makes a deal with a magical secret society to enter a potentially deadly competition for the chance to avenge her mother's death.Ever since a vampire murdered her mother, Ava has been determined to get revenge. This all-encompassing drive has given her the fuel she needed to survive foster home after foster home. But it's been ten years since anyone's seen a vampire, and Ava has lost hope that she'll ever find one . . . until she stumbles across a hidden magic show where she witnesses impossible illusions. The magicians may not be the bloodsuckers she's hunting, but Ava is convinced something supernatural is at play, so she sneaks backstage and catches them in acts they can't explain. But they've been waiting for her. The magicians reveal they're part of an ancient secret society with true magic, and Ava has the same power in her blood that they do. If she joins them, they promise to teach her the skills she needs to hunt vampires and avenge her mother. But there's a catch: if she wants to keep the power they offer, she needs to prove she's worthy of it. And to do so, she must put on the performance of her life in a sinister and dangerous competition where illusion and reality blur, and the stakes are deadly.

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'Highly recommended' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'This book was absolutely fantastic! I couldn't put it down' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'This is one of the best thrillers I've read' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐"This riveting, original, and powerful mother-daughter story kept me glued to the pages." Colleen Hoover"Filled with buried secrets and jaw-dropping deception, Sarah Pekkanen's GONE TONIGHT is a page-turning thriller about a mother-daughter you won't soon forget." Harlan CobenCatherine Sterling thinks she knows her mother. Ruth Sterling is quiet, hardworking, and lives for her daughter. All her life, it's been just the two of them against the world. But now, Catherine is ready to spread her wings, move from home, and begin a new career. And Ruth Sterling will do anything to prevent that from happening. Ruth Sterling thinks she knows her daughter. Catherine would never rebel, would never question anything about her mother's past or background. But when Ruth's desperate quest to keep her daughter by her side begins to reveal cracks in Ruth's carefully-constructed world, both mother and daughter begin a dance of deception. No one can know Ruth's history. There is a reason why Ruth kept them moving every few years, and why she was ready--in a moment's notice--to be gone in the night. But danger is closing in. Is it coming from the outside, from Ruth's past? Is Ruth reaching a breaking point? Or is the danger coming from the darkness that may live in Catherine, herself?More praise for GONE TONIGHT"Captivating from beginning to end." - Samantha Downing

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�[Optimize is] ideal for undergraduate students at all levels. The content is of a high standard, easy to read and understand. The materials are very catching and easy on the eye making it easy to read and digest the materials�an essential study tool for all law students' - George Ellison, Derby �I am really impressed�the strengths are the user friendly format, clear explanations, helpful diagrams/flowcharts and appropriate suggestions for analysing the issues concerned� - Katherine Davies, Northumbria The Optimize series is designed to show you how to apply your knowledge in assessment. These concise revision guides cover the most commonly taught topics, and provide you with the tools to: Understand the law and remember the details o using diagrams and tables throughout to demonstrate how the law fits together Contextualise your knowledge o identifying and explaining how to apply legal principles for important cases o providing revision advice to help you aim higher in essays and exams Avoid common misunderstandings and errors o identifying common pitfalls students encounter in class and in assessment Reflect critically on the law o identifying contentious areas that are up for debate and on which you will need to form an opinion Apply what you have learned in assessment o presenting learning objectives that reflect typical assessment criteria o providing sample essay and exam questions, supported by end-of chapter feedback The series is also supported by comprehensive online resources that allow you to test your progress during the run-up to exams. URL: www.routledge.com/cw/optimizelawrevision/

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Become an ETF expert with this up-to-date investment guide Want to expand your portfolio beyond stocks and mutual funds? (Of course you do, you smart investor you.) Then take a look at exchange-traded funds (ETFs)! A cross between an index fund and a stock, they're transparent, easy to trade, and tax-efficient. They're also enticing because they consist of a bundle of assets (such as an index, sector, or commodity), so diversifying your portfolio is easy. You might have even seen them offered in your 401(k) or 529 college plan. Exchange-Traded Funds For Dummies is your primer on ETFs. It gives you an insider (the legal kind!) perspective on the investment process, starting with an overview of ETFs and how they differ from stocks and mutual funds. The book also helps you measure risk and add on to your portfolio, and offers advice on how to avoid the mistakes even professionals sometimes make. Throughout, you'll also find plenty of tips, tricks, and even sample portfolios to set you up on the right path for investment success. With Exchange-Traded Funds For Dummies, you will: Find out exactly what exchange-traded funds are and why they make good investments Mix and match stock portfolios to diversify yours Go beyond stocks for maximum diversification: bonds, real estate, and commodity ETFs Maintain your portfolio for future growth With the tricks of the trade in Exchange-Traded Funds For Dummies, you can easily apply the knowledge you gain to turn good investments into great ones. Happy earning!

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Make your every wish Alexa’s command with this in-depth guide to the wildly popular Amazon smart speaker You might be thinking, “All I have to do is plug in my Echo device and start using it!” And you’d be right. But if you really want to explore what that compact little device can do, then Alexa For Dummies is your go-to resource. This book shows you how to customize your device to respond to your requests and enhance your life. Alexa For Dummies takes you on a tour of all things Alexa: its capabilities, tools, settings, and skills. Go beyond the basics of playing music, calling friends, reading the news, and checking the weather. You’ll learn how to make Alexa private and secure, connect it to your smart home devices, and even make it sound like Samuel L. Jackson, if you feel like it. You can also extend its capabilities by adding new skills. Customize your device to respond to your voice Troubleshoot when a light is signaling something’s wrong Add skills to play music and audiobooks Create routines to turn on lights, adjust the thermostat, set your security alarm, and lock your doors Sync your smart devices throughout your home Use Alexa to connect to a Zoom meeting or phone call with your friends or family No matter which device you have—Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Show, Echo Studio, Echo Flex, Echo Loop, Echo Buds, or Echo Frames—Alexa For Dummies is the perfect companion. Ready to get started? Say “Hey, Alexa, order Alexa For Dummies!”

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The definitive study guide for the new CCNA and CCNP certifications CCNA Certification Practice Test: Exam 200-301 is the definitive practice guide for professionals preparing for the new CCNA or CCNP certifications, and for those looking to master the latest technologies in Cisco networking fundamentals. The practice exams, written by 17-year industry professional Jon Buhagiar, explore a broad range of exam objectives essential for passing the certification exam. The CCNA exam provides the certification needed to grow your IT career. Each practice exam in this book is designed to prepare you to pass the CCNA by imparting the skills, knowledge, and practical coursework needed to master all exam topics. This book includes access to six practice tests featuring 1,200 exam questions, as well as two full practice exams. Most importantly, the six practice tests featured in Certification Practice Tests Exam 200-301 cover a variety of topics, including: Security fundamentals Automation and programmability IP services IP connectivity Network success Network fundamentals In addition to a plethora of exam topics and plenty of sample questions to prepare you for the CCNA exam, readers will also have access to online test tools featuring additional practice questions and study tools to assist in reinforcing the knowledge you’ve gained with the book. Learn the foundational knowledge you need to pass the CCNA or CCNP and take your career to the next level by preparing with CCNA Certification Practice Tests.

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Despite the apparently distinct differences between the disciplines of ergonomics and rehabilitation, they deal with the same issues, although at different ends of the spectrum. Keeping this in mind, Ergonomics for Rehabilitation Professionals explores their philosophies and goals, their parallel, divergent, and complementary aspects. It traces the origin of each field and examines the role of ergonomics in rehabilitation. The book begins with a theoretical and conceptual review of ergonomics and its role in rehabilitation. It covers anthropometry and its impact on human biomechanics, allowing readers to grasp complex concepts, visualize what forces are acting where, and understand the consequence of this force. A chapter on tissue mechanics provides an understanding of the effect of the overall load on the tissues and a rationale for possible mechanisms of injury that can be used to design prevention and treatment methods. The book explores the relevant physiological issues, looking at the energy cost of activities and the data on strength and endurance. It discusses whole body biomechanics using an approach that supplies intuitive understanding of the effects of force, gravity, and physiological variables in an integrated manner. Addressing theoretical underpinnings with scientific rigor, the book covers a broad range of topics, always emphasizing design in rehabilitation. The editor’s organization of the material develops concepts in concentric circles with increasing radii, sequencing ideas and exploring them from simple to complex. This selection of topics from two vast and seemingly diverse disciplines provides the tools for setting realistic goals and developing the strategies to achieve them.

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Denying recognition or even existence to certain others, while still tolerating diversity, stabilizes a political order; or does it? Revisiting this classical question of political theory, the book turns to the Talmud. That late ancient body of text and thought displays a new concept of the political, and thus a new take on the question of excluded others. Philosophy- and theology-driven approaches to the concept of the political have tacitly elided a concept of the political which the Talmud displays; yet, that elision becomes noticeable only by a methodical rereading of the pages of the Talmud through and despite the lens of contemporary competing theological and philosophical theories of the political. The book commits such rereading of the Talmud, which at the same time is a reconsideration of contemporary political theory. In that way, The Political intervenes both to the study of the Talmud and Jewish Thought in its aftermath, and to political theory in general. The question of the political for the excluded others, or for those who programmatically do not claim any “original” belonging to a particular territory comes at the forefront of analysis in the book. Other Others approaches this question by moving from a modern political figure of “Jew” as such an “other other” to the late ancient texts of the Talmud. The pages of the Talmud emerge in the book as a (dis)appearing display of the interpersonal rather than intersubjective political. The argument in the book arrives, at the end, to a demand to think earth anew, now beyond the notions of territory, land, nationalism or internationalism, or even beyond the notion of universe, that have defined the thinking of earth so far.

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Imagine Fredric Jameson—the world’s foremost Marxist critic—kidnapped and taken on a joyride through the cultural ephemera, generational hype, and Cold War fallout of our post-post-contemporary landscape. In The Jamesonian Unconscious, a book as joyful as it is critical and insightful, Clint Burnham devises unexpected encounters between Jameson and alternative rock groups, new movies, and subcultures. At the same time, Burnham offers an extraordinary analysis of Jameson’s work and career that refines and extends his most important themes.In an unusual biographical move, Burnham negotiates Jameson’s major works—including Marxism and Form, The Political Unconscious, and Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism—by way of his own working-class, queer-ish, Gen-X background and sensibility. Thus Burnham’s study draws upon an immense range of references familiar to the MTV generation, including Reservoir Dogs, theorists Slavoj Zizek and Pierre Bourdieu, The Satanic Verses, Language poetry, the collapse of state communism in Eastern Europe, and the indie band Killdozer. In the process, Burnham addresses such Jamesonian questions as how to imagine the future, the role of utopianism in capitalist culture, and the continuing relevance of Marxist theory.Through its redefinition of Jameson’s work and compelling reading of the political present, The Jamesonian Unconscious defines the leading edge of Marxist theory. Written in a style by turns conversational, playful, and academic, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Marxism, critical theory, aesthetics, narratology, and cultural studies, as well as the wide circle of readers who have felt and understood Jameson’s influence.

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When an independent Poland reappeared on the map of Europe after World War I, it was widely regarded as the most Catholic country on the continent, as “Rome’s Most Faithful Daughter.” All the same, the relations of the Second Polish Republic with the Church—both its representatives inside the country and the Holy See itself—proved far more difficult than expected. Based on original research in the libraries and depositories of four countries, including recently opened collections in the Vatican Secret Archives, Rome’s Most Faithful Daughter: The Catholic Church and Independent Poland, 1914–1939 presents the first scholarly history of the close but complex political relationship of Poland with the Catholic Church during the interwar period. Neal Pease addresses, for example, the centrality of Poland in the Vatican’s plans to convert the Soviet Union to Catholicism and the curious reluctance of each successive Polish government to play the role assigned to it. He also reveals the complicated story of the relations of Polish Catholicism with Jews, Freemasons, and other minorities within the country and what the response of Pope Pius XII to the Nazi German invasion of Poland in 1939 can tell us about his controversial policies during World War II. Both authoritative and lively, Rome’s Most Faithful Daughter shows that the tensions generated by the interplay of church and state in Polish public life exerted great influence not only on the history of Poland but also on the wider Catholic world in the era between the wars.

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Part of the American Literatures Initiative Series 2011 Winner of the Alan Bray Memorial Book Award presented by the Modern Language Association Challenging the conception of empowerment associated with the Black Power Movement and its political and intellectual legacies in the present, Darieck Scott contends that power can be found not only in martial resistance, but, surprisingly, where the black body has been inflicted with harm or humiliation. Theorizing the relation between blackness and abjection by foregrounding often neglected depictions of the sexual exploitation and humiliation of men in works by James Weldon Johnson, Toni Morrison, Amiri Baraka, and Samuel R. Delany, Extravagant Abjection asks: If we’re racialized through domination and abjection, what is the political, personal, and psychological potential in racialization-through-abjection? Using the figure of male rape as a lens through which to examine this question, Scott argues that blackness in relation to abjection endows its inheritors with a form of counter-intuitive power—indeed, what can be thought of as a revised notion of black power. This power is found at the point at which ego, identity, body, race, and nation seem to reveal themselves as utterly penetrated and compromised, without defensible boundary. Yet in Extravagant Abjection, “power” assumes an unexpected and paradoxical form. In arguing that blackness endows its inheritors with a surprising form of counter–intuitive power—as a resource for the political present—found at the very point of violation, Extravagant Abjection enriches our understanding of the construction of black male identity.

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As Christopher Nolan’s Batman films and releases from the Marvel Cinematic Universe have regularly topped the box office charts, fans and critics alike might assume that the “comic book movie” is a distinctly twenty-first-century form. Yet adaptations of comics have been an integral part of American cinema from its very inception, with comics characters regularly leaping from the page to the screen and cinematic icons spawning comics of their own. Movie Comics is the first book to study the long history of both comics-to-film and film-to-comics adaptations, covering everything from silent films starring Happy Hooligan to sound films and serials featuring Dick Tracy and Superman to comic books starring John Wayne, Gene Autry, Bob Hope, Abbott & Costello, Alan Ladd, and Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. With a special focus on the Classical Hollywood era, Blair Davis investigates the factors that spurred this media convergence, as the film and comics industries joined forces to expand the reach of their various brands. While analyzing this production history, he also tracks the artistic coevolution of films and comics, considering the many formal elements that each medium adopted and adapted from the other. As it explores our abiding desire to experience the same characters and stories in multiple forms, Movie Comics gives readers a new appreciation for the unique qualities of the illustrated page and the cinematic moving image.

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Bathing beauty Esther Williams, bombshell Jane Russell, exotic Carmen Miranda, chanteuse Lena Horne, and talk-show fixture Zsa Zsa Gabor are rarely hailed as great actors or as naturalistic performers. Those terms of praise are given to male stars like Marlon Brando and James Dean, whose gritty dramas are seen as a departure from the glossy spectacles in which these stars appeared. Like a Natural Woman challenges those assumptions, revealing the skill and training that went into the work of these five actresses, who employed naturalistic performance techniques, both onscreen and off.Bringing a fresh perspective to film history through the lens of performance studies, Kirsten Pullen explores the ways in which these actresses, who always appeared to be “playing themselves,” responded to the naturalist notion that actors should create authentic characters by drawing from their own lives. At the same time, she examines how Hollywood presented these female stars as sex objects, focusing on their spectacular bodies at the expense of believable characterization or narratives.Pullen not only helps us appreciate what talented actresses these five women actually were, but also reveals how they sought to express themselves and maintain agency, even while meeting the demands of their directors, studios, families, and fans to perform certain feminine roles. Drawing from a rich collection of classic films, publicity materials, and studio archives, Like a Natural Woman lets us take a new look at both Hollywood acting techniques and the performance of femininity itself.

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Although the names Mandel'shtam and Nijinsky more commonly evoke the Russian poet and the ballet dancer, their wives, Nadezhda and Romola are also beginning to attract attention. Similarly, the lives and works of Simone de Beauvoir, Lou Andreas-Salome, Asja Lacis, and Maitreyi Devi all have been represented as having been dominated by their association with some of the most important men of Western letters, but they too are coming into their own. These six women all wrote the stories of their own lives, creating powerful narratives that channelled cultural forces at the same time as parrying them. Susan Ingram analyzes the literary, cultural, and ethical effects of these writers whose lives were intertwined with the cultural vibrations of their time, and who heralded the postmodern in having to negotiate their subject positions in the form of a relational autonomy, an ethical sense of alterity, and a strong desire to make an intervention in the cultures of their times. Interdisciplinary in approach, this study brings together scholarship on auto/biography, post/modernity, ethics, identity, and relationality, and makes available material from a variety of languages, some of which appears in English for the first time. In relating the life-stories of six remarkable women to the increasingly popular genre of academic personal criticism, Ingram concludes that the ambiguous, problematic way these women represent their autonomy encourages us to read such academic criticism with attention to the way it represents and often blurs personal and collective identity.

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The shift in the ideological winds toward a "free-market" economy has brought profound effects in urban areas. The Neoliberal City presents an overview of the effect of these changes on today's cities. The term "neoliberalism" was originally used in reference to a set of practices that first-world institutions like the IMF and World Bank impose on third-world countries and cities. The support of unimpeded trade and individual freedoms and the discouragement of state regulation and social spending are the putative centerpieces of this vision. More and more, though, people have come to recognize that first-world cities are undergoing the same processes. In The Neoliberal City, Jason Hackworth argues that neoliberal policies are in fact having a profound effect on the nature and direction of urbanization in the United States and other wealthy countries, and that much can be learned from studying its effect. He explores the impact that neoliberalism has had on three aspects of urbanization in the United States: governance, urban form, and social movements. The American inner city is seen as a crucial battle zone for the wider neoliberal transition primarily because it embodies neoliberalism's antithesis, Keynesian egalitarian liberalism. Focusing on issues such as gentrification in New York City; public-housing policy in New York, Chicago, and Seattle; downtown redevelopment in Phoenix; and urban-landscape change in New Brunswick, N.J., Hackworth shows us how material and symbolic changes to institutions, neighborhoods, and entire urban regions can be traced in part to the rise of neoliberalism.

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Laura Mason examines the shifting fortunes of singing as a political gesture to highlight the importance of popular culture to revolutionary politics. Arguing that scholars have overstated the uniformity of revolutionary political culture, Mason uses songwriting and singing practices to reveal its diverse nature. Song performances in the streets, theaters, and clubs of Paris showed how popular culture was invested with new political meaning after 1789, becoming one of the most important means for engaging in revolutionary debate. Throughout the 1790s, French citizens came to recognize the importance of anthems for promoting their interpretations of revolutionary events, and for championing their aspirations for the Revolution. By opening new arenas of cultural activity and demolishing Old Regime aesthetic hierarchies, revolutionaries permitted a larger and infinitely more diverse population to participate in cultural production and exchange, Mason contends. The resulting activism helps explain the urgency with which successive governments sought to impose an official political culture on a heterogeneous and mobilized population. After 1793, song culture was gradually depoliticized as popular classes retreated from public arenas, middle brow culture turned to the strictly entertaining, and official culture became increasingly rigid. At the same time, however, singing practices were invented which formed the foundation for new, activist singing practices in the next century. The legacy of the Revolution, according to Mason, was to bestow new respectability on popular singing, reshaping it from an essentially conservative means of complaint to an instrument of social and political resistance.

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"Management fads in higher education will never be the same. Birnbaum's penetrating analysis reveals in the clearest possible terms why fads die an early death." --Burton R. Clark, Allan M. Carter Professor Emeritus of Higher Education and Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles "Anyone in higher education leadership should read this critical and amusing book. It goes much further than the dull descriptions of management techniques for universities and colleges. It is fair, convincing, and well documented." --Frans van Vught, Rector Magnificus, University of Twente, The Netherlands When is a management innovation truly a good idea, and when is it only a fad? In this thoughtful book, Robert Birnbaum scrutinizes the rise and fall of management fads in higher education since the 1960s. He shows administrators and faculty how to move beyond the hype of new fads to make wise, informed decisions and adopt sound management policies. Birnbaum begins by analyzing the historical development of seven major management systems in higher education. From these histories, he develops a model for understanding the life cycle of management innovations, including their creation, development, and eventual adoption or abandonment. He then explains the social and environmental factors that make institutions vulnerable to fads, plus the psychological issues that may lead academic managers to support failing fads. This comprehensive resource is for anyone who wants to understand how management innovations can be used to strengthen the educational and social purposes of higher education. To read the first chapter of this book, Seeking the Grail: The Never-Ending Quest, click here.

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