Search results for ""Author Louis""

A technology expert describes the ever-increasing role of artificial intelligence in weapons development, the ethical dilemmas these weapons pose, and the potential threat to humanity. Artificial intelligence is playing an ever-increasing role in military weapon systems. Going beyond the bomb-carrying drones used in the Afghan war, the Pentagon is now in a race with China and Russia to develop "lethal autonomous weapon systems" (LAWS). In this eye-opening overview, a physicist, technology expert, and former Honeywell executive examines the advantages and the potential threats to humanity resulting from the deployment of completely autonomous weapon systems. Stressing the likelihood that these weapons will be available in the coming decades, the author raises key questions about how the world will be impacted. Though using robotic systems might lessen military casualties in a conflict, one major concern is: Should we allow machines to make life-and-death decisions in battle? Other areas of concern include the following: Who would be accountable for the actions of completely autonomous weapons--the programmer, the machine itself, or the country that deploys LAWS? When warfare becomes just a matter of technology, will war become more probable, edging humanity closer to annihilation? What if AI technology reaches a "singularity level" so that our weapons are controlled by an intelligence exceeding human intelligence? Using vivid scenarios that immerse the reader in the ethical dilemmas and existential threats posed by lethal autonomous weapon systems, the book reveals that the dystopian visions of such movies as The Terminator and I, Robot may become a frightening reality in the near future. The author concludes with concrete recommendations, founded in historical precedent, to control this new arms race.

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The moving story of Ulysses S. Grant's final battle, and the definitive account of the national memorial honoring him as one of America's most enduring heroes The final resting place of Ulysses S. Grant, the victorious general in the Civil War and the eighteenth president of the United States, is a colossal neoclassical tomb located in the most dynamic city in the country. It is larger than the final resting place of any other president or any other person in America. Since its creation, the popularity and condition of this monument, built to honor the man and what he represented to a grateful nation at the time of his death, a mere twenty years after the end of the Civil War, have reflected not only Grant's legacy in the public mind but also the state of New York City and of the Union.In this fascinating, deeply researched book, presidential historian Louis L. Picone recounts the full story. He begins with Grant's heroic final battle during the last year of his life, to complete his memoirs in order to secure his family's financial future while contending with painful, incurable cancer. Grant accomplished this just days before his death, and his memoirs, published by Mark Twain, became a bestseller. Accompanying his account with numerous period photographs, Picone narrates the national response to Grant's passing and how his tomb came to be: the intense competition to be the resting place for Grant's remains, the origins of the memorial and its design, the struggle to finance and build it over the course of twelve years, and the vicissitudes of its afterlife in the history of the nation up to recent times.

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Louis de Bernières is the bestselling author of Captain Corelli's Mandolin, which won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best Book in 1995. His most recent books are So Much Life Left Over, The Dust That Falls From Dreams and The Autumn of the Ace, the short story collection Labels, the children's book Station Jim and the poetry collection The Cat in the Treble Clef.

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Psychotherapy evolved as a way of liberating the human spirit from the constraints of neurosis - it was never meant to be a means of alleviating symptoms and improving social adjustment. This book presents an orientation and approach to resist the threat of it becoming "managed care".

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During the past 20 years, transgenesis has become a popular technique and a crucial tool for molecular geneticists and biologists. Transgene expression is now better-controlled and even specifically inducible by exogenous factors. While these techniques have quite significantly transformed the experimental approaches taken by biologists, the applications are more limited than expected and concerns have arisen regarding biosafety as well as physiological, social, and philosophical issues. Transgenic Animals: Generation and Use contains articles on the techniques used to generate transgenic animals and a section on the preparation of vectors for the optimally controlled expression of transgenes. It also examines the use of transgenic animals in the study of gene function and human diseases, the preparation of recombinant proteins and organs for pharmaceutical and medical use, and the improvement of genetic characteristics of farm animals. Finally, it discusses more recent problems generated by transgenic animals including conservation of transgenic lines, specific database patenting, biosafety, and bioethics.Drawn from both academia and industry, the contributors to this monograph present in one concise volume all the relevant information on the different aspects of transgenesis. This book can be used as both a reference book and a textbook for specialized university courses and will be of interest to everyone involved in basic research in animal biology, molecular genetics, animal biotechnology, pharmaceutical science, and medicine.

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Sometimes we must look to the past to survive the future.Q wants a simpler and safer life. His work as a quantum cryptographer for the government has led him to believe a crisis is imminent for civilisation and he's looking for somewhere to ride out what's ahead.He buys a ruined farmhouse in Cornwall and begins to build his own self-sufficient haven. Over the course of this quest he meets the eccentric characters who already live on the moors nearby - including the park ranger in charge of the reintroduced lynxes and aurochs that roam the area; a holy man waiting for the second coming on top of a nearby hill; an Arthurian knight on horseback and the amorous ghost of an Edwardian woman who haunts the farmhouse.As life in the cities gets more complicated, and our systems of electronic control begin to fall apart, Q flourishes in the wild Cornish countryside. His new way of life brings him back in tune with his teenage children, his ex-wife, and his own sense of who he is. He also grows close to Eva, energetic and enchanting, who is committed to her own quest for love and meaning.In this entertaining and heart-warming novel Louis de Bernières makes us reconsider what is really precious in our short and precarious lives.‘Marked by de Bernieres’ customary light touch and wry humour...This quirky novel is timely... a feelgood story about friendship and love – vintage de Bernieres.’ Daily Mirror

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This book presents a broad analytical framework for the history of southeastern Ghana within the context of a representative study of one of the country’s most important political and economic forces. The 150,000 Krobo are the most numerous of the Adangme-speaking peoples. They are located in the mountains just inland from the coast and are the fourth largest ethnic group in the country. During the nineteenth century they were one of the small states of the Gold Coast in the formative stages of political and cultural development. After the middle of the nineteenth century they became economically and politically one of the most important groups in the country because of their dominant role in commercial production of export crops. Historical research on Ghana has produced mostly case studies of the large, centralized Akan states. Wilson’s study is an account of one of the smaller societies without which a history of Ghana would be incomplete.

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The Last “Darky” establishes Bert Williams, the comedian of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth, as central to the development of a global black modernism centered in Harlem’s Renaissance. Before integrating Broadway in 1910 via a controversial stint with the Ziegfeld Follies, Williams was already an international icon. Yet his name has faded into near obscurity, his extraordinary accomplishments forgotten largely because he performed in blackface. Louis Chude-Sokei contends that Williams’s blackface was not a display of internalized racism nor a submission to the expectations of the moment. It was an appropriation and exploration of the contradictory and potentially liberating power of racial stereotypes.Chude-Sokei makes the crucial argument that Williams’s minstrelsy negotiated the place of black immigrants in the cultural hotbed of New York City and was replicated throughout the African diaspora, from the Caribbean to Africa itself. Williams was born in the Bahamas. When performing the “darky,” he was actually masquerading as an African American. This black-on-black minstrelsy thus challenged emergent racial constructions equating “black” with African American and marginalizing the many diasporic blacks in New York. It also dramatized the practice of passing for African American common among non-American blacks in an African American–dominated Harlem. Exploring the thought of figures such as Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, and Claude McKay, Chude-Sokei situates black-on-black minstrelsy at the center of burgeoning modernist discourses of assimilation, separatism, race militancy, carnival, and internationalism. While these discourses were engaged with the question of representing the “Negro” in the context of white racism, through black-on-black minstrelsy they were also deployed against the growing international influence of African American culture and politics in the twentieth century.

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Use computer technology to complement and strengthen your special education program!This book provides practical information, case examples, theory, and a critical summary of applied research about how computer technology can be used to support and improve special education and related services. With Computers in the Delivery of Special Education and Related Services, you'll learn how technology can be used to facilitate an individualized and collaborative approach to learning. Topics of discussion include innovative instruction, consultation, family collaboration, curriculum-based assessment, and professional development.Computers in the Delivery of Special Education and Related Services is a valuable resource in which special services providers can find ways to use computers to enhance individualized instruction and the problem-solving skills of their students, as well as avenues of professional collaboration and support.Computers in the Delivery of Special Education and Related Services presents thoughtful discussions that examine: how computer software can be used in the assessment of students’progress within specific curricula how students can use the Internet to discuss class projects with experts in a process known as ”telementoring” how software can help a school-based consultation team through specific aspects of the problem-solving process, including data collection, intervention selection, team decision documentation, and follow-up ways to use the Internet to create new types of learning communities for students and professionals, extending Vygotsky's notion of ”zone of proximal development” (ZPD) to the community level the advantages and disadvantages of using email with the intention of complementing and strengthening face-to-face collaboration the aspects of home computer use that address a student's special needs the importance of understanding the family's values, expectations, and cultural background Computers in the Delivery of Special Education and Related Services reflects the editors’hope that creative applications of technology will soon transcend the nagging stereotypes of computers (they isolate students, they're too difficult to use, that they lack the flexibility to treat people as individuals). Then computers will be viewed as partners in the process of special education--machines that enhance current practices and open new vistas for learning and education.

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Relations between Jews and non-Jews in the Hellenistic-Roman period were marked by suspicion and hate, maintain most studies of that topic. But if such conjectures are true, asks Louis Feldman, how did Jews succeed in winning so many adherents, whether full-fledged proselytes or "sympathizers" who adopted one or more Jewish practices? Systematically evaluating attitudes toward Jews from the time of Alexander the Great to the fifth century A.D., Feldman finds that Judaism elicited strongly positive and not merely unfavorable responses from the non-Jewish population. Jews were a vigorous presence in the ancient world, and Judaism was strengthened substantially by the development of the Talmud. Although Jews in the Diaspora were deeply Hellenized, those who remained in Israel were able to resist the cultural inroads of Hellenism and even to initiate intellectual counterattacks. Feldman draws on a wide variety of material, from Philo, Josephus, and other Graeco-Jewish writers through the Apocrypha, the Pseudepigrapha, the Church Councils, Church Fathers, and imperial decrees to Talmudic and Midrashic writings and inscriptions and papyri. What emerges is a rich description of a long era to which conceptions of Jewish history as uninterrupted weakness and suffering do not apply.

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Twenty-three top advisors from leading firms show entrepreneurs how to transition their business The Entrepreneur's Transition provides an all-in-one handbook for entrepreneurs and corporate insiders seeking advice on their personal financial planning prior to selling or taking a business public. It provides a concise, easy-to-read blueprint that can help business leaders navigate before and after a transaction-so they are well positioned and can avoid costly mistakes. The Entrepreneur's Transition is organized chronologically beginning with the issues a business owner should be concerned with prior to a transaction. It then moves, step by step, through the transaction process and into post transaction diversification, reinvestment, and philanthropy. Louis Crosier (Boston, MA) is a principal at Windward Investment Management and serves as a member of Windward's Investment Committee. His responsibilities include managing client portfolios and overseeing the firm's investment consulting practice.

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"White-collar criminals continue to pick our pockets to the tune of$300 billion every year. These 'socially acceptable' criminals robmore from companies and individuals with a pen or key stroke than astreet thug can plunder with a high-powered pistol." --from theIntroduction In Masters of Deception, former special agent and intelligenceofficer Louis Mizell addresses the growing problem of white-collarcrime in America. Using actual cases, Mizell exposes scores ofperpetrators and their modus operandi, and offers invaluable adviceon what to look for, how to avoid being a victim, and how to fightback. Praise for Louis Mizell and Masters of Deception "Mizell stands out as a true expert in crime and terrorism whoearned his title fighting the bad guys in back alleys, courts,corporate suites, and the new global economy. No one else out therecan match his knowledge of what the bad guys are doing and how."--James Grady, author of Six Days of the Condor and WhiteFlame "Masters of Deception exposes little known facts that should berevealed to the unsuspecting public. Mizell may well be the nextRalph Nader in exposing the many ways innocent people arevictimized by white-collar crime." --Dr. Richard Ward, AssociateChancellor and Professor of Criminal Justice, University of Chicagoat Illinois White-collar crime is an alarming epidemic that has reached everybig city and small town in America. Invading all sectors, fromhealth care and religion to law and education, it claims millionsof victims, and bilks taxpayers out of billions of dollars everyyear. In Masters of Deception, top crime expert Louis Mizelladdresses this serious--and costly--problem, exposing some of themost notorious offenders, and providing precautionary measureseveryone should take to avoid being "taken to the cleaners." Leaving no get-rich-quick stone unturned, white-collar criminalsstrike from every angle. Whether they're doctors overbillingpatients, charity workers pocketing donations, or lawyers abusingpowers of attorney, their fraudulent practices cost individuals,companies, and institutions billions of dollars. Consider thefollowing: * Every year an average of $160 million is stolen or embezzled fromschools and colleges all over the country * Insurance fraud--property, casualty, and health--is a $95billion-a-year scam * Credit card fraud costs taxpayers nearly $3 billion per year * Dishonest lawyers pocket more than $14 billion annually * More than $21 billion is being stolen from charities eachyear In Masters of Deception, Mizell explores the full spectrum ofwhite-collar crime and the misuse of power by professionals wetrust, including health care, business, education, and religion. Hereveals hundreds of actual cases, from local crimes to such highlypublicized incidents as the PTL scandal. With his experiencedanalytical eye, Mizell is able to spot new and emerging trends andpinpoint signs to look for in identifying potential cons. Sharinghis expertise and insight as a former special agent andintelligence officer, Mizell also offers proven tips for fightingback--specific to each sector--as well as an extensive list ofcontacts for receiving further information, getting help, orreporting a crime. And anyone who believes that white- collar crime is nonviolent willbe shocked to learn that crime in the suites causes as much deathand injury as crime in the streets. Masters of Deception is a timely and authoritative book that willnot only raise awareness about white-collar crime, but also allowreaders "to empower themselves with enough knowledge to never be avictim."

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Set against the backdrop of the collapsing Ottoman Empire, Birds Without Wings traces the fortunes of one small community in south-west Anatolia - a town in which Christian and Muslim lives and traditions have co-existed peacefully for centuries. When war is declared and the outside world intrudes, the twin scourges of religion and nationalism lead to forced marches and massacres, and the peaceful fabric of life is destroyed. Birds Without Wings is a novel about the personal and political costs of war, and about love: between men and women; between friends; between those who are driven to be enemies; and between Philothei, a Christian girl of legendary beauty, and Ibrahim the Goatherd, who has courted her since infancy. Epic in sweep, intoxicating in its sensual detail, it is an enchanting masterpiece.'A mesmerising patchwork of horror, humour and humanity' Independent

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Periods of socio-historical change often prompt renewed interest in history-writing. Interest in the past is then driven by processes of identity negotiation which facilitate a new orientation in changed circumstances. The Hebrew Bible is an excellent example, containing historiographical writings from different socio-historical periods. Dramatic socio-political and socio-religious changes took place from the sixth to the fourth centuries B.C.E. in Ancient Israel. These changes prompted different processes of identity negotiation through historiographical literature. The authors of the essays collected here explore historiographical and related texts and their contexts in these tumultuous times in order to come to a better understanding of the dynamic relationship between ancient historiography and identity negotiation. They also investigate how this literature could be interpreted in contemporary contexts of socio-historical change.Contributors: Johann Cook, Izak Cornelius, Louis Jonker, Gary Knoppers, Oded Lipschits, Gerrie Snyman, Robert Vosloo, Josef Wieshöfer, Ehud Ben Zvi

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A young woman returns to her village as an ardent nationalist after qualifying as a doctor in London; a bittereinder who left the Transvaal Republic for the Argentine after the Anglo-Boer War returns to his grandfather's village as a highly critical expatriate; the local villagers pursue their lives; and the resulting issues of patriotism, language, race, religion, culture, politics and morality, so endemic to South Africa, combine as the action of the story builds to a deeply moving climax. The Mask is set in a village clearly recognisable as Clanwilliam in the Union of South Africa, formerly the Cape Colony where the author grew up in the 1880s and 1890s. It is fascinating not only for its insight into South African political and social issues some twenty-five years after the end of the Anglo-Boer War, but also - in the opinion of the editors - for its embodiment of Leipoldt's own deep-seated values and beliefs. It was said of Leipoldt after his death that: 'He preferred to contradict. He was the apostle of the opposite view.' In The Mask his characters engage in fiercely polemical debates, some of which undoubtedly express Leipoldt's own views, although no self-respecting apostle of the opposite view would allow himself to be pinned down too easily. Undoubtedly, however, the real Leipoldt lies in the different views expressed.

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Sometimes we must look to the past to survive the future.Q wants a simpler and safer life. His work as a quantum cryptographer for the government has led him to believe a crisis is imminent for civilisation and he's looking for somewhere to ride out what's ahead.He buys a ruined farmhouse in Cornwall and begins to build his own self-sufficient haven. Over the course of this quest he meets the eccentric characters who already live on the moors nearby - including the park ranger in charge of the reintroduced lynxes and aurochs that roam the area; a holy man waiting for the second coming on top of a nearby hill; an Arthurian knight on horseback and the amorous ghost of an Edwardian woman who haunts the farmhouse.As life in the cities gets more complicated, and our systems of electronic control begin to fall apart, Q flourishes in the wild Cornish countryside. His new way of life brings him back in tune with his teenage children, his ex-wife, and his own sense of who he is. He also grows close to Eva, energetic and enchanting, who is committed to her own quest for love and meaning.In this entertaining and heart-warming novel Louis de Bernières makes us reconsider what is really precious in our short and precarious lives.‘Marked by de Bernieres’ customary light touch and wry humour...This quirky novel is timely... a feelgood story about friendship and love – vintage de Bernieres.’ Daily Mirror

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For professional comedians, their primary goal is to make people laugh. For everyone else humor can be the envelope in which another message is sent and therefore will be received with pleasure. This book is designed precisely to help you make your own efforts at humor more effective in achieving the primary goals of your interaction: to solidify friendships, preserve a marriage, obtain employment, close sales, conduct therapy, defuse conflict, or simply enjoy life more. Humor is a quality nearly all of us claim in ourselves and one which we seek and highly value in others. We love a sense of humor in our dates and mates, our children, and everyone with whom we have social contacts. When humor making is successful, we are drawn closer to other people and share a bonding emotional experience. We enjoy life more and our troubles seem to lessen instantly. There are many proven ways to enhance our senses of humor in ourselves and even our children. Humor making can be taught and developed to a very high level, thus increasing our chances for social and even economic success. Just Kidding: Using Humor Effectively is for adults who enjoy humor and who would like to be funnier. It includes definitions of funniness and examples of both helpful and harmful humor. It describes the relevant comedic and psychological rules for making humor effective. The book points out the danger signs for offensive humor and how to make the decision to “say it or stuff it.” Examples of successful and unsuccessful humor from comedians to politicians are used throughout to illustrate the many varieties of humor and how context and audience make a difference. Finally, a variety of fun exercises are offered to build the skills for effective humor making.

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For professional comedians, their primary goal is to make people laugh. For everyone else humor can be the envelope in which another message is sent and therefore will be received with pleasure. This bookis designed precisely to help you make your own efforts at humor more effective in achieving the primary goals of your interaction: to solidify friendships, preserve a marriage, obtain employment, close sales, conduct therapy, defuse conflict, or simply enjoy life more. Humor is a quality nearly all of us claim in ourselves and one which we seek and highly value in others. We love a sense of humor in our dates and mates, our children, and everyone with whom we have social contacts. When humor making is successful, we are drawn closer to other people and share a bonding emotional experience. We enjoy life more and our troubles seem to lessen instantly. There are many proven ways to enhance our senses of humor in ourselves and even our children. Humor making can be taught and developed to a very high level, thus increasing our chances for social and even economic success. Just Kidding: Using Humor Effectively is for adults who enjoy humor and who would like to be funnier. It includes definitions of funniness and examples of both helpful and harmful humor. It describes the relevant comedic and psychological rules for making humor effective. The book points out the danger signs for offensive humor and how to make the decision to “say it or stuff it.” Examples of successful and unsuccessful humor from comedians to politicians are used throughout to illustrate the many varieties of humor and how context and audience make a difference. Finally, a variety of fun exercises are offered to build the skills for effective humor making.

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The first edition of Satellite Communications Systems Engineering (Wiley 2008) was written for those concerned with the design and performance of satellite communications systems employed in fixed point to point, broadcasting, mobile, radio navigation, data relay, computer communications, and related satellite based applications. This welcome Second Edition continues the basic premise and enhances the publication with the latest updated information and new technologies developed since the publication of the first edition. The book is based on graduate level satellite communications course material and has served as the primary text for electrical engineering Masters and Doctoral level courses in satellite communications and related areas. Introductory to advanced engineering level students in electrical, communications and wireless network courses, and electrical engineers, communications engineers, systems engineers, and wireless network engineers looking for a refresher will find this essential text invaluable.

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Philo's Portrayal of Moses in the Context of Ancient Judaism presents the most comprehensive study of Philo's De Vita Mosis that exists in any language. Feldman, well known for his work on Josephus and ancient Judaism, here paves new ground using rabbinic material with philological precision to illuminate important parallels and differences between Philo's writing on Moses and rabbinic literature. One way in which Hellenistic culture marginalized Judaism was by exposing the apparent defects in Moses' life and character. Philo's De Vita Mosis is a counterattack to these charges and is a vital piece of his attempt to reconcile Judaism and Hellenism. Feldman rigorously examines the text and shows how Philo presents a narrative of Moses's life similar to that of a mythical divine and heroic figure, glorifying his birth, education, and virtues. Feldman demonstrates that Philo is careful to explain in a scientific way those portions of the Bible, particularly miracles, that appear incredible to his skeptical Hellenistic readers. Through Feldman's careful analysis, Moses emerges as unique among ancient lawgivers. Philo's Portrayal of Moses in the Context of Ancient Judaism mirrors the organization of Philo's biography of Moses, which is in two books, the first, in the style of Plutarch, proceeding chronologically, and the second, in the style of Suetonius, arranged topically. Following an introductory chapter, Feldman's study discusses the life of Moses chronologically in the second chapter and examines his virtues topically in the third. Feldman compares the particular features of Philo's portrait of Moses with the way in which Moses is viewed both by Jewish sources in antiquity (including Pseudo-Philo; Josephus; Graeco-Jewish historians, poets, and philosophers; and in the Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Samaritan tradition, Dead Sea Scrolls, and rabbinic tradition) and by non-Jewish sources, notably the Greek and Roman writers who mention him.

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'De Bernieres is a singular, cherishable voice' Mail on SundayFrom the master of historical fiction, this book follows war hero Daniel Pitt and his unforgettable family after the Second World War.Some bonds are hard to break...Daniel Pitt was an RAF fighter in the First World War and an espionage agent for the SOE in the Second. Now the conflicts he faces are closer to home.Daniel's marriage has fractured beyond repair and Daniel's relationship with his son, Bertie, has been a failure since Bertie was a small boy.But after his brother Archie's death, Daniel is keen for new perspectives. He first travels to Peshawar to bury Archie in the place he loved best, and then finds himself in Canada, avoiding his family and friends back in England. Daniel and Bertie's different experiences of war, although devastating, also bring with them the opportunity for the two to reconnect.If only they can find a way to move on from the past...For more adventures with flying ace Daniel Pitt, see The Dust That Falls From Dreams and So Much Life Left Over.

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Louis Comfort Tiffany created a revolutionary aesthetic that brought the beauty of the natural world into the home via his manufacture of opalescent glass. With his pioneering development, artisans no longer achieved details by painting on glass, they now painted with glass, and Tiffany's brilliantly colored glass masterpieces took on stunning three-dimensionality. Having produced windows and blown glass for two decades, near the turn of the 20th century his studios began crafting the now-famous lamps that made Tiffany a household name. Designers such as Clara Driscoll-who won a bronze medal at the Paris World's Fair of 1900 for one of her shade designs-often interpreted Tiffany's aesthetics and his desire to illuminate nature. A dozen designs-nearly all attributed to her-are included in this calendar.The distinctive shades featured here are part of the New'York Historical Society's Dr. Egon Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass.

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In Print Technology in Scotland and America Louis Kirk McAuley investigates the mediation of popular-political culture in Scotland and America, from the transatlantic religious revivals known as the Great Awakening to the U.S. presidential election of 1800. By focusing on Scotland and America—and, in particular, the tension between unity and fragmentation that characterizes eighteenth-century Scottish and American literature and culture—Print Technology aims to increase our understanding of how tensions within these corresponding political and cultural arenas altered the meaning of print as an instrument of empire and nation building. McAuley reveals how seemingly disparate events, including journalism and literary forgery, were instrumental and innovative deployments of print not as a liberation technology (as Habermas’s analysis of print's structural transformation of the public sphere suggests), but as a mediator of political tensions.

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The divine command to exterminate Amalek--men, women, children, and even animals who have no free will--is what in contemporary terms has been called genocide. Louis Feldman explores how the earliest systematic commentators on the Bible--the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo in his many essays on biblical themes; the mysterious, still unclassified Pseudo-Philo in his Biblical Antiquities; the premier Jewish historian and polymath Josephus in his Jewish Antiquities; and the Rabbis in the Mishnah, Talmud, and other literature-wrestled with the issues involved in this divine command, especially its provision that an entire people must be eternally punished for the misdeeds of their ancestors. Feldman contextualizes his study of Amalek by considering how these ancient commentators relate to other cases where God commands the destruction of whole groups of people: the flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the plague of the first-born Egyptians, and the command to annihilate the Canaanites. He also studies accounts of mass destruction where there was no specific divine commandment-the annihilation of the Hivites because one of them raped Dinah, the annihilation of the nations of Sihon and Og, the complete destruction of the inhabitants of Jericho, and the extermination of the priests of Nob-as well as the challening issue of why God justifies Phinehas's zealotry, which involved transgressing the law to kill a Jew and a non-Jew for their immorality. All of these biblical passages raise difficult questions and provide no simple answers. Feldman shows us how ancient commentators received and struggled with Amalek and other genocide passages: Psuedo-Philo had the fewest problems and is most insistent on interpreting the divine command literally, while Philo turned to allegory to resolve the tensions these passages raised with the principle that the innocent should not suffer for the sins of the guilty, and Josephus was concerned to counter the impression that Jews hate non-Jews. Feldman's study exposes the deep roots of biblical reception in contemporary political and moral issues.

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