Search results for ""author robert"

Robert Pinker has written extensively on social policy matters since the early 1960s. His distinct approach to understanding concepts such as welfare pluralism is of particular relevance today as welfare pluralism remains an essential component of the policy mix, giving people access to a greater range and diversity of statutory, voluntary, and private sector services than unitary models of welfare provide. Social Policy and Welfare Pluralism presents the first collection of Robert Pinker’s essays in one edited volume. It includes essays on the ways in which welfare theories and ideologies and public expectations have influenced and shaped the political processes of policy making. Other essays focus on clarifying some of the key concepts that underpin the study of social policy. Pinker also reviews the extent to which the United Kingdom has succeeded in creating a ‘policy mix’ in which normative compromises are negotiated between the claims of market individualism and public sector collectivism. The concluding chapter by Robert Pinker reviews the prospects for social policy in the UK over the next five years.

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In April 1967, a year before his run for president, Senator Robert F. Kennedy knelt in a crumbling shack in Mississippi trying to coax a response from a listless child. The toddler sat picking at dried rice and beans spilled over the dirt floor as Kennedy, former US attorney general and brother to a president, touched the boy's distended stomach and stroked his face and hair. After several minutes with little response, the senator walked out the back door, wiping away tears.In Delta Epiphany: Robert F. Kennedy in Mississippi, Ellen B. Meacham tells the story of Kennedy's visit to the Delta, while also examining the forces of history, economics, and politics that shaped the lives of the children he met in Mississippi in 1967 and the decades that followed. The book includes thirty-seven powerful photographs, a dozen published here for the first time. Kennedy's visit to the Mississippi Delta as part of a Senate subcommittee investigation of poverty programs lasted only a few hours, but Kennedy, the people he encountered, Mississippi, and the nation felt the impact of that journey for much longer. His visit and its aftermath crystallized many of the domestic issues that later moved Kennedy toward his candidacy for the presidency. Upon his return to Washington, Kennedy immediately began seeking ways to help the children he met on his visit; however, his efforts were frustrated by institutional obstacles and blocked by powerful men who were indifferent and, at times, hostile to the plight of poor black children.Sadly, we know what happened to Kennedy, but this book also introduces us to three of the children he met on his visit, including the baby on the floor, and finishes their stories. Kennedy talked about what he had seen in Mississippi for the remaining fourteen months of his life. His vision for America was shaped by the plight of the hungry children he encountered there.

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An expansive and revelatory study of Robert Smithson’s life and the hidden influences on his iconic creations This first biography of the major American artist Robert Smithson, famous as the creator of the Spiral Jetty, deepens understanding of his art by addressing the potent forces in his life that were shrouded by his success, including his suppressed early history as a painter; his affiliation with Christianity, astrology, and alchemy; and his sexual fluidity. Integrating extensive investigation and acuity, Suzaan Boettger uncovers Smithson’s story and, with it, symbolic meanings across the span of his painted and drawn images, sculptures, essays, and earthworks up to the Spiral Jetty and beyond, to the circumstances leading to what became his final work, Amarillo Ramp.While Smithson is widely known for his monumental earthwork at the edge of the Great Salt Lake, Inside the Spiral delves into the arc of his artistic production, recognizing it as a response to his family’s history of loss, which prompted his birth and shaped his strange intelligence. Smithson configured his personal conflicts within painterly depictions of Christ’s passion, the rhetoric of science fiction, imagery from occult systems, and the impersonal posture of conceptual sculpture. Aiming to achieve renown, he veiled his personal passions and transmuted his professional persona, becoming an acclaimed innovator and fierce voice in the New York art scene.Featuring copious illustrations never before published of early work that eluded Smithson’s destruction, as well as photographs of Smithson and his wife, the noted sculptor Nancy Holt, and recollections from nearly all those who knew him throughout his life, Inside the Spiral offers unprecedented insight into the hidden impulses of one of modern art’s most enigmatic figures. With great sensitivity to the experiences of loss and existential strife that defined his distinct artistic language, this biographical analysis provides an expanded view of Smithson’s iconic art pilgrimage site and the experiences and works that brought him to its peculiar blood red water.

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A thrilling Covert-One novel, from the world's No. 1 bestselling international author.In the increasingly turbulent atmosphere of international politics, a once grassroots anti-globalisation movement has been slowly taken over by an underground radical anti-technology group fronted by a mysterious figure known only as Lazarus. All attempts to infiltrate the group have failed, and the intelligence agents involved have disappeared without trace. Now Lazarus is preparing to make his boldest move yet. Lt Col. Jon Smith is activated by Covert-One to bring his skills to bear in uncovering the truth behind the terrorists. For, unbeknown to the world at large, the Lazarus Movement is on the brink of setting in motion a deadly scheme that will risk the lives of billions and for ever change the nature of the world.

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Robert Emmet's life, death, and immediate elevation into the pantheon of Irish nationalist heroes are well known. These essays on Emmet's life and legacy, however, demonstrate a new interdisciplinary approach to studies of the Irish nationalist hero. "Reinventing Emmet" includes essays on commemoration, literature, legal history and aspects of the Emmet legacy not explored elsewhere, such as studies of his influence on American culture, and draws on research from young as well as established scholars. Robert Emmet is an Irish (and Irish-American) nationalist icon. Although Emmet's rebellion of 1803 was an embarrassing failure, his speech from the dock prior to his execution for high treason has captured national and international imagination. The trial, the speech, and the image of Emmet have in many ways superseded his actual achievements, and have been perpetually reproduced across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, culminating in the bicentenary of Emmet's rebellion in 2003. But what is Emmet's legacy? Is there more to this iconic figure than a failed rebellion and a memorable speech?

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This third volume of collected theoretical and critical essays focuses on Dia's exhibitions from 1998 through 2000. As in the first two volumes, nine diverse contributors are included, ranging from art historian Jonathan Crary and philosopher Boris Groys to film theoretician Peter Wollen, from curator Russell Ferguson to cultural critic Elaine Showalter. These writers, among others, take on the challenges of illuminating, analyzing, and exploring the work of a disparate group of internationally recognized artists, including Joseph Beuys, Stan Douglas, Douglas Gordon, Rodney Graham, Bruce Nauman and Andy Warhol. Together, the essays in this book present a broad-based account of contemporary artistic practice, criticism, scholarship and theory.

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In Designs for Living, Roger H. Seifter, Randy M. Correll, Grant F. Marani, and Gary L. Brewer, who lead the residential practice at Robert A.M. Stern Architects, present fifteen houses the firm has completed over the past ten years. From contemporary interpretations of the shingle style to robust Mediterranean designs, the houses are stylistically diverse reflecting RAMSA’s deep knowledge of history and precedent. Each partner provides insight into the design process and his individual approach to working with clients. Houses are located in dramatic settings from Napa and Sonoma to the spectacular coastline of the Hamptons and New England. Whether overlooking the ocean or nestled into the mountainside, these remarkable houses reveal the architects’ emphasis on the importance of context and their dedication to exploring the nature of place and environment. Each house invokes the vernacular architectural heritage particular to its region while gracefully reflecting its natural surroundings. Connecting contemporary lifestyles to traditional American aesthetics, these residences are exceptional both for their timelessness and their ability to evoke a conversation with the past - a dialogue the RAMSA partners believe lies at the heart of architecture.

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Leipzig is not just a city famous for music and books but also a focal point for painting. This book showcases the latest generation of artists from Leipzig: Martin Kobe (1973), Mirjam Völker (1977), Robert Seidel (1983) and Titus Schade (1984). They are continuing the great tradition of painting in Leipzig. They all studied at Leipzig's famous art academy, the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst. Kobe was a master-class student of Arno Rink, while Völker, Seidel and Schade studied with Neo Rauch. The four artists are united by their virtuosity and the particular attention they pay to landscape and architecture. Text in English, Dutch and German.

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Ex-lieutenant Eddie Gundersen returns to Belzagor on a scientific expedition to the borders of the indigenous lands, where he must face his nemesis, Kurtz, and his own inner demons on a planet which still has hidden secrets. "COLONIES: Return to Belzagor" is a new edition of the previously released "Downward to the Earth" (2017). It has been edited for content.

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2022 Atlantean Award, Robert E. Howard FoundationYou may not know the name Robert E. Howard, but you probably know his work. His most famous creation, Conan the Barbarian, is an icon of popular culture. In hundreds of tales detailing the exploits of Conan, King Kull, and others, Howard helped to invent the sword and sorcery genre.Todd B. Vick delves into newly available archives and probes Howard’s relationships, particularly with schoolteacher Novalyne Price, to bring a fresh, objective perspective to Howard's life. Like his many characters, Howard was an enigma and an outsider. He spent his formative years visiting the four corners of Texas, experiences that left a mark on his stories. He was intensely devoted to his mother, whom he nursed in her final days, and whose impending death contributed to his suicide in 1936 when he was just thirty years old.Renegades and Rogues is an unequivocal journalistic account that situates Howard within the broader context of pulp literature. More than a realistic fantasist, he wrote westerns and horror stories as well, and engaged in avid correspondence with H. P. Lovecraft and other pulp writers of his day. Vick investigates Howard’s twelve-year writing career, analyzes the influences that underlay his celebrated characters, and assesses the afterlife of Conan, the figure in whom Howard's fervent imagination achieved its most durable expression.

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An expansive and revelatory study of Robert Smithson’s life and the hidden influences on his iconic creations This first biography of the major American artist Robert Smithson, famous as the creator of the Spiral Jetty, deepens understanding of his art by addressing the potent forces in his life that were shrouded by his success, including his suppressed early history as a painter; his affiliation with Christianity, astrology, and alchemy; and his sexual fluidity. Integrating extensive investigation and acuity, Suzaan Boettger uncovers Smithson’s story and, with it, symbolic meanings across the span of his painted and drawn images, sculptures, essays, and earthworks up to the Spiral Jetty and beyond, to the circumstances leading to what became his final work, Amarillo Ramp.While Smithson is widely known for his monumental earthwork at the edge of the Great Salt Lake, Inside the Spiral delves into the arc of his artistic production, recognizing it as a response to his family’s history of loss, which prompted his birth and shaped his strange intelligence. Smithson configured his personal conflicts within painterly depictions of Christ’s passion, the rhetoric of science fiction, imagery from occult systems, and the impersonal posture of conceptual sculpture. Aiming to achieve renown, he veiled his personal passions and transmuted his professional persona, becoming an acclaimed innovator and fierce voice in the New York art scene.Featuring copious illustrations never before published of early work that eluded Smithson’s destruction, as well as photographs of Smithson and his wife, the noted sculptor Nancy Holt, and recollections from nearly all those who knew him throughout his life, Inside the Spiral offers unprecedented insight into the hidden impulses of one of modern art’s most enigmatic figures. With great sensitivity to the experiences of loss and existential strife that defined his distinct artistic language, this biographical analysis provides an expanded view of Smithson’s iconic art pilgrimage site and the experiences and works that brought him to its peculiar blood red water.

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Robert Pippin (1948- ) is a major figure in contemporary philosophy, having published influential work on thinkers including Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche. He is also an original thinker about – and critic of – film who has written books and numerous articles on canonical subjects such as the Western, Film Noir, and Hitchcock's Vertigo. In Robert Pippin and Film, Dominic Lash demonstrates the ways that film has been crucial to Pippin's thought on important philosophical topics such as political psychology, ethics, and self-knowledge. He also explores the implications of Pippin's methodological commitments to clear language and to maintaining close contact with the details of the films in question. In so doing, Lash brings Pippin's work on film to a wider audience and contributes to current debates both within film studies and beyond. This includes those concerning the relationships between film and philosophy, criticism and aesthetics, and individual subjectivity and political consciousness. Lash focuses on Pippin's major works on film – Hollywood Westerns and American Myth (2010), Fatalism in American Film Noir (2012), The Philosophical Hitchcock (2017), and Filmed Thought (2020) as well as his many shorter writings on film.

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In A Manual of the Writings in Middle English, Amis and Amiloun, Robert of Cisyle, and Sir Amadace are classified by Lillian Herlands Hornstein as Legendary Romances of Didactic Intent. Amis, produced in the East Midlands in the late thirteenth century was well known throughout Europe, but according to Edward Foster, the Middle English version is especially lively, entertaining, and perplexing. Robert of Cisyle was also a common and popular story; like the medieval tragedies recounted in Chaucer's The Monk's Tale, it recounts the story of the fall of a great man and his ultimate triumph once he has been thoroughly humiliated. The stress in Sir Amadace is on material things: Amadace's original plight is material, his succor of the unburied knight is material, the white knight's assistance to him is material, his redemption is material . . . , and his ultimate happiness is material. Second, revised edition

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The Scottish poet Robert Burns has been idolised and eulogised. He has been sainted, painted, tarted-up and toasted. He is famous as the author of 'Auld Lang Syne', and he has long been the patron saint of the heartsore and the hungover. But what about the poems? Beneath the cult of Burns Nights and patriotic yawps, there is the work itself, among the purest and most truthful created in any age.This is a Burns collection like no other, introduced, arranged and contextualised by the award-winning novelist and essayist Andrew O'Hagan. Above all, it is an accessible edition made for the pleasure of reading that brings Burns' timeless work to full, riotous, colourful life.

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"The availability of a paperback version of Boyle's philosophical writings selected by M. A. Stewart will be a real service to teachers, students, and scholars with seventeenth-century interests. The editor has shown excellent judgment in bringing together many of the most important works and printing them, for the most part, in unabridged form. The texts have been edited responsibly with emphasis on readability. . . . Of special interest in connection with Locke and with the reception of Descarte's Corpuscularianism, to students of the Scientific Revolution and of the history of mechanical philosophy, and to those interested in the relations among science, philosophy, and religion. In fact, given the imperfections in and unavailability of the eighteenth-century editions of Boyle’s works, this collection will benefit a wide variety of seventeenth-century scholars." --Gary Hatfield, University of Pennsylvania

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The story of how Robert Bruce outwitted Edward I, the shrewd and ruthless King of England, defeated his son Edward II, and in doing so regained Scotland's independence. Professor Barrow describes the dazzling and tragic career of William Wallace, the English military occupation of Scotland that was its consequence, and the emergence of Robert Bruce as the centre of Scottish resistance. The author pieces together from the surviving evidence a vivid and almost day-by-day account of Bruce's daring tactics, his crowning at Scone in March 1306, his defeat by the English three months later, and his life as a fugitive.

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Despite widespread interest in Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, little has been written about him in decades past. In Elizabeth I's Last Favourite, Sarah-Beth Watkins brings the story of his life, and death, back into the public eye. In the later years of Elizabeth I's reign, Robert Devereux became the ageing queen's last favourite. The young upstart courtier was the stepson of her most famous love, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Although he tried, throughout his life, to live up to his stepfather's memory, Essex would never be the man he was. His love for the queen ran in tandem with undercurrents of selfishness and greed. Yet, Elizabeth showered him with affection, gifts and the tolerance only a mother could have for an errant son. In return, for a time, Essex flattered her and pandered to her every whim. But, one disastrous commission after another befell the earl, from his military campaigns, to voyages seeking treasure, to his stint as spymaster. Ultimately, his relationship with the queen would suffer and his final act of rebellion would force Elizabeth I to ensure her last favourite troubled her no more.

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Over six decades of brilliant prints and paintings from the most prominent Northwest Coast artist of his generation.Finalist for the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize, a BC & Yukon Book Prize Since leaving Haida Gwaii to study art in Vancouver—where he carved argillite with Bill Reid in a department store and hand-sold prints on the UBC campus—Guud sans glans, Robert Davidson has moved between two worlds. As a host of Potlatches, carver of masks and totem poles, and performer and teacher of traditional Haida songs and dances, he has been one of the driving forces in the resurgence of Haida culture in the aftermath of colonization. As an artist working in serigraphs, acrylic, wood, silver, and aluminum to preserve and breathe new life into Haida formline, he has become among the most respected, celebrated, and thrilling artists in the country, if not the world.Echoes of the Supernatural is the first publication in over forty years to offer a comprehensive visual retrospective of his astonishing career. It includes new photography of over 150 prints, as well as images of over fifty paintings; numerous painted woven hats, painted and carved sculptures, jewellery, aluminum sculpture; and dozens of archival photos. His long-time gallerist Gary Wyatt, who worked closely with Davidson in shaping the book and received full access to his archives, details the artist’s life and career, and offers insights on the work based on extensive new interviews. A foreword by Karen Duffek situates the contours of Davidson’s practice within the broader Northwest Coast art world.

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Robert De Niro at Work is the first critical study to examine how Robert de Niro, perhaps the finest screen actor of his generation, works with screenplays to imagine, prepare and denote his performance. In categorising the various ways in which De Niro works with a screenplay, this book will re-examine the relationship between actor and text. This book considers the screenplay as above all a working document and a material object, present at every stage of the filmmaking process. The working screenplay goes through various iterations in development and exists in many versions on set, each adapted and personalised for the specific use of the individual and their role. As the archive reveals, nobody works more closely with the script than the actor, and no actor works more on a script than De Niro.

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Jason Bourne is on the run. The NSA believes Bourne controls the cyber weapon devised by his old friend, General Boris Karpov, capable of penetrating the heart of America's final defence: nuclear launch codes. Flushed from cover, hunted by assassins and nearly killed, Bourne must join forces with his bitterest enemy, Keyre, the Somali terrorist, whose organization Bourne once decimated. From the Greek island of Skyros to Somalia and the underbelly of Moscow, Bourne must unravel the mystery of Boris Karpov's last legacy, a weaponized code that may very well bring about the unthinkable: a violent end to America.

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Shattering longstanding myths, this new biography reveals the robust and positive life of one of the nineteenth century's greatest composers This candid, intimate, and compellingly written new biography offers a fresh account of Robert Schumann’s life. It confronts the traditional perception of the doom-laden Romantic, forced by depression into a life of helpless, poignant sadness. John Worthen’s scrupulous attention to the original sources reveals Schumann to have been an astute, witty, articulate, and immensely determined individual, who—with little support from his family and friends in provincial Saxony—painstakingly taught himself his craft as a musician, overcame problem after problem in his professional life, and married the woman he loved after a tremendous battle with her father. Schumann was neither manic depressive nor schizophrenic, although he struggled with mental illness. He worked prodigiously hard to develop his range of musical styles and to earn his living, only to be struck down, at the age of forty-four, by a vile and incurable disease.Worthen’s biography effectively de-mystifies a figure frequently regarded as a Romantic enigma. It frees Schumann from 150 years of mythmaking and unjustified psychological speculation. It reveals him, for the first time, as a brilliant, passionate, resolute musician and a thoroughly creative human being, the composer of arguably the best music of his generation.

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One of a series designed to provide a new, accessible approach to the works of great poets and playwrights. Each text includes general notes on the text; discussion of themes, issues and context; and suggestions for further reading.

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This is an introduction to the life and work of Kate Roberts, the most important woman writer ever to have emerged from Wales. It offers a comprehensive account of her life, from her birth into a life of poverty and hardship in the slate-quarrying region of Snowdonia to her death almost a hundred years later in Denbigh; in between, she had attended University, at a time when very few Welsh women did, worked as an impassioned and inspirational teacher in the south Wales valleys, run a major printing press and published the main Welsh national newspaper, Y Faner, helped to found Plaid Cymru, the Welsh Nationalist Party, campaigned tirelessly for the Welsh language, challenged gender stereotypes and restrictions in traditional patriarchal Wales, and produced a body of literary work in the Welsh language which makes her rank alongside Saunders Lewis as the greatest Welsh writer of the twentieth century.

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The first book by the New Yorkbased AD100 architect Elizabeth Roberts compiles photographs, sketches, and even vignettes of fiction, to showcase her award-winning workOver the past decades, Elizabeth Roberts Architects has built a practice of specificity. Whether breathing new life into a historic townhouse or imparting a sense of place into a ground-up contemporary home, Roberts dissolves the boundaries between architecture, interior design, and objects. Her sensitive approach and timeless aesthetic have earned her firm not only wide acclaim and AD100 status, but also a devoted following.The 18 projects featured in this bookamong them chic city townhouses and brownstones, contemporary mountain retreats, and a restored country farmhouse, as well as commercial and cultural commissions, and ERA's designs for wallpaper and furniturereflect Roberts's dedication to reframing the distinctions between history and modernity. Varied in their typologies, all are

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Pairing a selection of recent watercolours from 2011 and 2012 by Thomas Schutte with a selection of previously unpublished poems by Robert Walser, written between 1924 and 1933, this book is a deeply personal exploration of our everyday selves, choreographed by one of the greatest living artists. This book is dedicated by the artist to the gallerist Donald Young, who invited the artist to participate in an exhibition dedicated to Walser in Chicago in 2012. Published in original German with new English translations of each poem and with an introduction by Dr. Reto Sorg, director of the Robert Walser Archives.

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For a brief moment in the summer of 1900, Robert Charles was arguably the most infamous black man in the United States. After an altercation with police on a New Orleans street, Charles killed two police officers and fled. During a manhunt that extended for days, violent white mobs roamed the city, assaulting African Americans and killing at least half a dozen. When authorities located Charles, he held off a crowd of thousands for hours before being shot to death. The notorious episode was reported nationwide; years later, fabled jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton recalled memorializing Charles in song. Yet today, Charles is almost entirely invisible in the traditional historical record. So who was Robert Charles, really? An outlaw? A black freedom fighter? And how can we reconstruct his story? In this fascinating work, K. Stephen Prince sheds fresh light on both the history of the Robert Charles riots and the practice of history-writing itself. He reveals evidence of intentional erasures, both in the ways the riot and its aftermath were chronicled and in the ways stories were silenced or purposefully obscured. But Prince also excavates long-hidden facts from the narratives passed down by white and black New Orleanians over more than a century. In so doing, he probes the possibilities and limitations of the historical imagination.

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Spenser investigates the past secrets of an elusive tech billionaire in this latest instalment of Robert B. Parker's beloved series, and the first written by celebrated writer Mike Lupica.The beautiful wife of one of the world's richest men comes to Spenser in the hope that he can find out what skeletons lurk in her husband's closet. Though he is a generous philanthropist and loving family man, she is concerned - he has recently become secretive, bordering on paranoid, and she wants Spenser to find out why. As Spenser digs into the billionaire's past, he realises that the man may have done terrible things to rise to the top - but he also may have had good reason to. What he discovers will cause him to question his own views on morality - and place him in grave danger.

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Examines an under-analysed period of Robert Altman's career Provides new critical perspectives on the Altman oeuvre Features original interviews with key Altman collaborators Offers case studies of Popeye, Tanner '88, Come Back to the Five & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, Cookie's Fortune and A Prairie Home Companion, among others Illuminating the industrial, cultural and aesthetic significance of the later years of one of American cinema's most influential auteurs, this anthology combines scholarly essays, original interviews with Robert Altman's collaborators and previously unseen photographs from the Robert Altman Papers held at the Special Collections Research Center, University of Michigan Library. The book considers post-1970s Altman as a way to rethink and reconceive his authorship, expanding our understanding of the development of Altman's personal aesthetic and production practices; his adaptation of existing source material; the representation of sex, gender and identity in his films; his relation to the changing landscape of American independent cinema; and his unfinished projects. Interviews with key Altman collaborators like Alan Rudolph, Ira Deutchman and Anne Rapp highlight their contributions to Altman's career. Rather than place aside the extensive work on Robert Altman to date, this comprehensive book offers texture and depth to previous ways of thinking about Altman's creativity and contribution to American cinema.

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One day in spring 1964, the young American poet Robert Bly left his rural farmhouse and drove 150 miles to the University of Minnesota library in Minneapolis to obtain the latest book by the young Swedish poet Tomas Transtromer. When Bly returned home that evening with a copy of Transtromer's The Half-Finished Heaven, he found a letter waiting for him from its author. With this remarkable coincidence as its beginning, what followed was a vibrant correspondence between two poets who would become essential contributors to global literature. Airmail collects more than 290 letters, written from 1964 until 1990, when Transtromer suffered a stroke that has left him partially paralysed and diminished his capacity to write. Across their correspondence, the two poets are profoundly engaged with each other and with the larger world: the Vietnam War, European and American elections, and the struggles of affording a life as a writer. Airmail also offers remarkable insights into the processes of translating literature from one language into another. As Bly began to render Transtromer's poetry into English and Transtromer began to translate Bly's poetry into Swedish, their collaboration soon turned into a friendship that has lasted fifty years. Insightful, brilliant, and often funny, Airmail provides a rare portrait of two artists who have become integral to each other's particular genius. Based on the original Swedish edition published in 2001, this publication marks the first time letters by Transtromer and Bly have been made available in Britain. Robert Bly's translations of Tomas Transtromer appear in The Half-Finished Heaven: The Best Poems of Tomas Transtromer, published by Graywolf Press. Transtromer's complete poetry is available in English in Robin Fulton's translation, New Collected Poems, published by Bloodaxe Books (and by New Directions in the US under the title The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems).

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The generalship of Robert E. Lee, the Confederacy's greatest commander, has long fascinated students of the American Civil War. In assessing Lee and his military career, historians have faced the great challenge of explaining how a man who achieved extraordinary battlefield success in 1862–1863 ended up surrendering his army and accepting the defeat of his cause in 1865. How, in just under two years, could Lee, the Army of Northern Virginia, and the Confederacy have gone from soaring triumph at Chancellorsville to total defeat at Appomattox Court House? In this reexamination of the last two years of Lee's storied military career, Ethan S. Rafuse offers a clear, informative, and insightful account of Lee's ultimately unsuccessful struggle to defend the Confederacy against a relentless and determined foe. Robert E. Lee and the Fall of the Confederacy describes the great campaigns that shaped the course of this crucial period in American history, the challenges Lee faced in each battle, and the dramatic events that determined the war's outcome. In addition to providing readable and richly detailed narratives of such campaigns as Gettysburg, Bristoe Station, Spotsylvania, and Appomattox, Rafuse offers compelling analysis of Lee's performance as a commander and of the strategic and operational contexts that influenced the course of the war. He superbly describes and explains the factors that shaped Union and Confederate strategy, how both sides approached the war in Virginia from an operational standpoint, differences in the two sides' respective military capabilities, and how these forces shaped the course and outcome of events on the battlefield. Rich in insights and analysis, this book provides a full, balanced, and cogent account of how even the best efforts of one of history's great commanders could not prevent the total defeat of his army and its cause. It will appeal to anyone with an interest in the career of Robert E. Lee and the military history of the Civil War.

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