Search results for ""ivan r dee, inc""

Following on his successful Guides to the plots and themes of Shakespeare's plays, Robert Fallon now explores the world of characters created by the Bard. Like Mr. Fallon's earlier books, A Theatergoer's Guide to Shakespeare's Characters is designed to enhance the playgoer's enjoyment of a performance, but it also makes for enlightening reading after the show. Intended for the general reader, it is written in plain but not inelegant English and avoids the specialized language of the theater and the academy. More than eight hundred characters appear in Shakespeare's thirty-eight plays—an astonishing variety of kings and queens, mothers and fathers, clowns and fairies, peasants and dukes, villains and heroes, the young and the old, the sinning and the sinned against. How could he have known so many in his diverse culture and portrayed them so convincingly? Mr. Fallon has chosen some sixty of these figures to examine. With few exceptions, they are the ones that modern theatergoers are most likely to encounter in performance, those that have captured the imagination of audiences over the centuries: Lear, Hamlet, Cleopatra, Rosalind, Portia, and the like. But some lesser-known characters are offered for their inherent interest and their example of Shakespeare's "infinite variety." Mr. Fallon locates each of them in the story of their play, relates them to other characters, shows how they change (or don't), and sums up their character and nature. Readers of his other Guides know they will find in Characters an entertaining and useful appraisal. "This book is as handy as they come...distilled without being dunderheaded—reader-friendly in the extreme."—American Theatre (on A Theatergoer's Guide to Shakespeare)

Read more less

Most of the really invigorating action in the art world today is a quiet affair, Mr. Kimball observes. It usually involves not the latest thing but permaneZnt things—they can be new or old, but their relevance is measured not by the buzz they create but by the silences they inspire. With reviews and essays composed over the last twenty years and revised for this book, Art's Prospect illuminates some of the chief spiritual itineraries of modern art. There is much to be learned and enjoyed in these stimulating, provocative, and elegant essays. —Paul Johnson

Read more less

Working in the children's cancer unit of a New York hospital for fifteen years, Norman Fried has been psychotherapist and counselor to both physically ill children and their worried families and friends. He has been part of scenes of bitterness and pain–and has observed how these sad moments have taught all concerned about life's important lessons. Sitting at the bedsides of children with life–threatening cancer, he has been sadly fortunate to hear their messages of hope and love, which have taught him how to help those they were leaving behind. The Angel Letters is his extraordinary book based on his experiences. It is intended for the living but is composed in the form of letters addressed to a dozen different children whose last days and months he shared intimately. From each experience he draws a lesson—in love, family, courage, belonging, etc.—that can help parents and family learn to suffer through the tragedy of their sick or lost child, drawing strength from their understanding of what has happened and from an appreciation for their child's perspective. "No story ends in death," Dr. Fried writes, "not in this book, and not in life. What happens after death is ours to ponder and struggle with. Some questions remain unanswered. But how a family lives after a death, how we as mourners can carry on–these are the questions I wrestle with here." In The Angel Letters he proves to be an inspiring companion for this difficult journey.

Read more less

Here, back in print, is Jimmy Breslin's marvelous account of the improbable saga of the New York Mets' first year, as Bill Veeck notes in his Introduction, "preserving for all time a remarkable tale of ineptitude, mediocrity, and abject failure." Indeed the 1962 Mets were the worst major league baseball team ever to take the field. (The title of the book is a quote from Casey Stengel, their manager at the time.) Breslin casts the Mets, who lost 120 games out of a possible 162 that year, as a lovable bunch of losers. And, he argues, they were good for baseball, coming as a welcome antidote to "the era of the businessman in sports...as dry and agonizing a time as you would want to see." Although they were written forty years ago, many of Breslin's comments will strike a chord with today's sports fan, fed up with the growing commercialism of the games. Against this trend Breslin sets the exploits of "Marvelous" Marv Throneberry, Stengel, and the rest of the hapless Mets. "Wonderful."—Charles Salzberg, New York Times. "A touching, enjoyable, and interesting addition to anybody's sports reading list."—Patrick Conway

Read more less

The poems of Into These Knots, Ashley Anna McHugh's debut collection, glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, interrogating and elucidating in elegant and supercharged speech ultimate questions and intimate foibles. With equal parts intelligence and passion, Ms. McHugh can quarrel with scripture or riff on the amorous pleadings of Andrew Marvell or the stark musings of Baudelaire. In "Cairns," a brilliant sequence that plays with the boundaries of the sonnet, mountain hikes in rural West Virginia trace, among other things, the difficult pathways to the divine. Ms. McHugh's poems resound with a songlike intensity and an arresting voice entirely their own. Personal meditations on loss, and the need to reconcile with the past, ground this collection, even as the poems struggle against their precarious conclusions. Skillfully crafted, the poems in Into These Knots capture a precise clarity of cadence, accompanied by an exacting attention to the intricacies of traditional verse. Their formal assurance lends a transformative control, a certain deliberateness, to the disordering events and emotions revealed. Frequently returning to their tonic chord of doubt, the poems never abandon their search for a lasting belief, an attainable transcendence, and, above all, the possibility of forgiveness.

Read more less

Young Americans went to South Vietnam and fought in a fierce war they barely understood. For a year they experienced an exotic land, strove to learn how to fight—and survive—looking eagerly ahead to their return from "The Nam." Their searing experiences varied by where they were assigned and at what point in the war they served. The Vietnamese adversaries, North and South, were defending their homes, fighting with no hope of ending the war other than by winning it. Too often the ordeals of those on both sides have been told by others—journalists, historians, even generals. In an invaluable corrective, John Prados, one of our leading interpreters of the Vietnam War, opens a window into the visceral reality of those on the ground in Vietnam. His carefully chosen and thoughtfully introduced anthology gathers the voices—in narrative and poetry—of men and women; Americans and Vietnamese (both of the North and South); officers, enlisted men, and civilians. All the selections feature individuals’ experiences of war or witnessing specific events and the realities of being caught up in them. Bridging the chasm between history and memory, together they offer an intense, even blazing, testimonial to the human condition in war.

Read more less

As their infatuation with President Obama fades, millions of Americans anxiously ask, Is this the change we were waiting for? The current administration represents change, for sure, Steven Malanga argues - a momentous transformation of the fundamental structure of American politics. A self-interested coalition of public-sector unions and government-financed community activists (like the young Barack Obama) has become our era's characteristic political machine. In Shakedown, Mr. Malanga shows how this machine's single-minded goal is always bigger government and more public spending. The bill, he says, is now coming due for the relentless rise of this new political powerhouse. He chronicles how public-sector unions and the corrupt political hacks beholden to them have all but bankrupted once-rich states like California and New Jersey. He details the campaigns to undermine the successful and popular 1990s welfare reform and to revitalize the failed, wasteful War on Poverty programs that funnel taxpayer money to the advocacy groups that are integral cogs in the new political machine. And he provides a comprehensive summary of how these same advocacy groups spent decades helping undermine mortgage standards in the name of helping the poor - in the process enriching themselves and enabling the housing meltdown. As Americans anxiously ponder the future direction of their government and their economy, Shakedown explores the questions of who got us in this mess and why we need change - constructive change - more than ever.

Read more less

"The New Criterion operates as a refuge for a civilizing element in short supply in contemporary America: honest criticism."—Wall Street Journal. Since its founding in 1982 by the art critic Hilton Kramer and the pianist and music critic Samuel Lipman, The New Criterion has waged a brisk and articulate campaign against facile and often politically motivated assaults on art and greatness. It has brought unparalleled verve, clarity, and wit to the vocation of criticism. But The New Criterion is not only America's foremost voice of critical dissent in culture and the arts; it is also an energetic ally in the battle against cultural and intellectual amnesia. At a moment when many institutions have become willing collaborators in despoiling our intellectual and artistic legacy, The New Criterion has been a standard-bearer for literary and cultural excellence. Drawn from twenty-five years of the magazine, this abundant collection contains a generous sampling of the very best writing from The New Criterion, featuring the judgments of our generation's most astute and entertaining observers. The many contributors include Brooke Allen, Stefan Beck, James Bowman, Anthony Daniels, Guy Davenport, John Derbyshire, Ben Downing, Paul Dean, Daniel Mark Epstein, Joseph Epstein, John Gross, Laura Jacobs, William Logan, Harvey Mansfield, Kenneth Minogue, Jay Nordlinger, Eric Ormsby, Cynthia Ozick, David Pryce-Jones, Mordecai Richler, Roger Scruton, John Simon, Mark Steyn, and David Yezzi.

Read more less

Early-nineteenth-century America experienced the first "wave" of immigration after Independence, when Germans, Irish, English, Scandinavians, and, on the West Coast, even Chinese began to arrive in significant numbers. These new settlers had a profound impact on such national developments as westward expansion, urban growth, industrialization, city and national politics, and the Civil War. James M. Bergquist's chronicle of the early immigrants' experiences describes where they came from, what their journey to America was like, and where they entered the new nation, and where they eventually settled. He highlights immigrant contributions to American life as well as their struggles to gain wider acceptance by the mainstream culture. The approach, similar to David Kyvig's highly successful Daily Life in the United States, 1920–1940 (published by Ivan R. Dee in 2004), presents history with an appealing immediacy, on a level that everyone can understand.

Read more less

What is the difference between a promoter and a hustler?" Bill Veeck asks. "Well, let's look at it this way. Neither one of them is an advertiser. An advertiser pays for his space. A promoter works out a quid pro quo . A hustler gets a free ride and makes it seem as if he's doing you a favor." Keep this in mind as Veeck, one of baseball's all–time characters and certainly its best–ever hustler, draws on an apparently bottomless well of stories, anecdotes, theories, and attitudes involving the often bizarre world of major league baseball. And, of course, he's never afraid to speak his mind. The Hustler's Handbook is a rich, hilarious, flagrantly outspoken lesson on how to operate as a hustler in the corporate jungle of modern baseball.

Read more less

Writes of Passage captures the essence of a universal human experience in literature that has enticed generations of readers: that moment in both fictional and real life when innocence and naiveté evolve into an understanding of the world's greater moral complexity. Collected from the last twenty-five years of The Hudson Review, the stories and memoirs in this book, by both emerging writers and established storytellers like Elizabeth Spencer, William Trevor, and Tennessee Williams, were first published in the literary quarterly based on their own merits, without regard to a developing genre. The editors of The Hudson Review became aware of a unifying theme through the magazine's Writers in the Schools program, which brought many of these works to students in two Harlem high schools.

Read more less

Aleksey Peshkov overcame indigence, violence, and suicidal despair to become Maksim Gorky, one of the most widely read and influential writers of the twentieth century. Childhood, the first book in Gorky's acclaimed autobiographical trilogy, depicts his early years, when after his father's death he was taken to live in the home of his maternal grandfather, a violent and vindictive man who both provided the child with a rudimentary education and subjected him to savage beatings. With remarkable freshness and candor, Gorky immerses his reader in a young child's world, recreating in dynamic prose a boy's bewilderment at the senseless cruelty that surrounds him, his solace in the quiet beauty of the natural world, and his often funny, guileless observations of the many vivid characters who enter his early life. At the center of this story stands Gorky's grandmother, Akulina Kashirina, one of Russian literature's most remarkable heroines. Her tender love for her grandson serves as a vital antidote to the brutality that threatens to consume him. Her buoyant faith in a merciful, loving, but limited God provides the young Gorky with a life-affirming alternative to the vengeful, omniscient deity his grandfather worships ardently. Although often unsettling in its portrayal of the poverty and ignorance that gripped nineteenth-century Russia, Childhood is ultimately a heartening account of a young boy's formative struggle to overcome the limitations of a decaying and corrupt society, and the remarkable old woman who enabled him to succeed and instilled in him an abiding, fierce compassion for Russia's destitute and defenseless. Childhood is freshly and beautifully translated by Graham Hettlinger, lauded for his translations of Ivan Bunin.

Read more less

Government funding of the arts in America has never followed an easy course. Whether on a local or national scale, political support for the arts carries with it a sense of exchange-the expectation that in return for money the community will benefit. But this concept is fraught with potential difficulties that touch upon basic tensions between individual creativity and community standards. In Money for Art, David Smith traces the history of government funding of the arts in America, with emphasis on developments since the founding of the National Endowment of the Arts in 1965. Included with his narrative are examples of issues arising between individual artists and American cultural values at large in the last decades of the twentieth century. Art observers will recall the heated controversy of the late 1980s and early 1990s over the Endowment's involvement with the photographers Andres Serrano and Robert Mapplethorpe. The episode aptly represents the inevitable head-on collision of contemporary art with the politics of funding it. Mr. Smith uses this clash between funding and freedom of speech as a prism through which to view the broad disagreement in America over the meaning, purpose, and place of art in a democracy. Money for Art tells how this outlook evolved and what its consequences are for art in America.

Read more less

With the Iraq War now in its fourth year, its merits are still contested by leading politicians in the U.S. and elsewhere. And revelations suggest that the president's secretary of state, Colin Powell, had opposed going to war. Historians have often analyzed the relationship between presidents and their advisors, but rarely the influence of those counselors who have dissented from the views of the chief executive. Mark J. White considers the question of alternative policies by examining the response of presidents, from Harry Truman to Lyndon Johnson, to dissent within their own. Mr. White fashions a provocative interpretation of America's role in the cold war and questions about the potential effectiveness of policies that might have been.

Read more less

The era of the big-city newspaper as a dependable beacon for the American people is over. Charles Madigan's -30- is the story of the decline of an important institution, the American newspaper, told in a collection of incisive pieces by practitioners of the art and craft of journalism. At heart it's an insider's story, but with serious and vast consequences in the world beyond the newsroom. -30- considers the impact of technology, management policy, and social values on the operations of the press and its changing marketplace.

Read more less

A generation ago Americans undertook a revolutionary experiment to redefine marriage. The results of this experiment separating marriage from childrearing are in, and they are bad news for children and for the country as a whole. The family upheaval has hit African-Americans especially hard. We forgot what American marriage was designed to do: it ordered lives by giving the young a meaningful life script. It supported middle-class foresight, planning, and self-sufficiency. And it organized men and women around The Mission—nurturing their children's cognitive, emotional, and physical development. It is The Mission that separates middle-class kids from their less-parented and lower-achieving peers. In fact our great family experiment threatens to turn what the founders imagined as an opportunity-rich republic of equal citizens into a hereditary caste society.

Read more less

Ted Fink's wife heard the explosion from the living room, where she sat reading the day's mail and sipping iced tea. She ran to the front door and saw a massive curling fireball. Her husband was in the flames, she was certain. She called 911, asking for help at the farm.... So begins Michael McCarthy's extraordinary portrayal of a real-life nightmare: an Illinois corn farmer so badly burned in a tractor accident that only his feet, protected by his new steel-toe boots, escaped the flames. While he lay unconscious, his wife Rhoda, with no way of knowing how disabled or disfigured he would emerge from multiple surgeries, had to decide whether to allow doctors to enshroud him in a cocoon of artificial skin, or let him die. This rare and intimate story carries the reader through the Finks' agonizing experience as Ted is sedated into a coma for six months while Rhoda is left alone to contemplate this life-or-death decision. Even the possibility of saving Ted depends upon the product of laboratories at MIT, where Mr. McCarthy takes the reader to describe the long-shot development of the world's first artificial skin and the ambitious Greek chemist who refused to let his dream of inventing it die. Because this new skin enables people to survive traumas as never before, it also forces hard choices with unpredictable consequences on ordinary people. To gather scenes that are by turns wrenching, beautiful, and searing, Mr. McCarthy, who met the Finks while working on their story for the Wall Street Journal, talked with them at length over two years at their farm. His heartfelt narrative of tragedy and redemption weaves together a saga of six generations of Midwestern farmers while revealing the dark side of a nostalgic occupation bedeviled by accident and death. For images and additional information visit the author's website at: http://thesunfarmer.com

Read more less

Building on his enormously successful series of Philosophers in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern now applies his witty and incisive prose to brief biographical studies of the world's great writers. He brings their lives and ideas to life in entertaining and accessible fashion. Far from being a novelty, each book is a highly refined appraisal of the writer and his work, authoritative and clearly presented. Applause for Paul Strathern's Philosophers in 90 Minutes series: "Each of these little books is witty and dramatic and creates a sense of time, place, and character....I cannot think of a better way to introduce oneself and one's friends to Western civilization."—Katherine A. Powers, Boston Globe "Well-written, clear and informed, they have a breezy wit about them....I find them hard to stop reading."—Richard Bernstein, New York Times "Witty, illuminating, and blessedly concise."—Jim Holt, Wall Street Journal

Read more less

Building on his enormously successful series of Philosophers in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern now applies his witty and incisive prose to brief biographical studies of the world's great writers. He brings their lives and ideas to life in entertaining and accessible fashion. Far from being a novelty, each book is a highly refined appraisal of the writer and his work, authoritative and clearly presented. Applause for Paul Strathern's Philosophers in 90 Minutes series: "Each of these little books is witty and dramatic and creates a sense of time, place, and character....I cannot think of a better way to introduce oneself and one's friends to Western civilization."—Katherine A. Powers, Boston Globe "Well-written, clear and informed, they have a breezy wit about them....I find them hard to stop reading."—Richard Bernstein, New York Times "Witty, illuminating, and blessedly concise."—Jim Holt, Wall Street Journal

Read more less

Readers and playgoers who are new to Shakespeare (and even more seasoned veterans who would like to appreciate him more than they do) often find themselves puzzled: what is going on? His characters speak in verse rather than in the patterns of everyday speech. They are figures that ordinary humans seldom encounter—kings, queens, dukes, cardinals, and generals. Some of the plays are set in places even the most seasoned traveler is unlikely to have visited—Bohemia, Illyria, and the ancient Greek cities of Asia Minor—and in times from the distant past—imperial Rome, medieval Venice, Homer's Troy. What's more, the plots pursue events that seemingly have little to do with the daily round of modern lives—contention for a royal crown, assassination, shipwreck, occult visitation. Robert Fallon's small book is designed to dispel some of this apparent strangeness. It shows readers that what may at first seem unfamiliar to them is in fact close to their own lives. Kings and queens emerge as recognizable fathers and mothers, dukes and earls as squabbling siblings of any era. Exotic locales might be any present-day village or city block. And the plots resemble stories to be found in the pages of our morning newspaper. Shakespeare's language takes some getting used to, but even a brief acquaintance with its cadence and imagery will offer a glimpse of its glories. In How to Enjoy Shakespeare, Mr. Fallon explores Shakespeare's familiarity in five sections dealing with language, theme, staging, character, and plot, each abundantly illustrated with episodes and quotations from the plays. He writes in easily accessible prose in a book designed to make modern readers and audiences feel comfortable with the Bard.

Read more less

Building on his enormously successful series of Philosophers in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern now applies his witty and incisive prose to brief biographical studies of the world's great writers. He brings their lives and ideas to life in entertaining and accessible fashion. Far from being a novelty, each book is a highly refined appraisal of the writer and his work, authoritative and clearly presented. Applause for Paul Strathern's Philosophers in 90 Minutes series: "Each of these little books is witty and dramatic and creates a sense of time, place, and character....I cannot think of a better way to introduce oneself and one's friends to Western civilization."—Katherine A. Powers, Boston Globe "Well-written, clear and informed, they have a breezy wit about them....I find them hard to stop reading."—Richard Bernstein, New York Times "Witty, illuminating, and blessedly concise."—Jim Holt, Wall Street Journal

Read more less

The record of the American economy since 1945 offers an embarrassment of riches for the historian, and Wyatt Wells has brought them together in a compact and incisive history. His theme is how greatly many economic circumstances changed—and how many other features remained essentially the same. He shows how throughout the period the United States enjoyed not only the world's largest economy but by most measures its most diverse and sophisticated. The second half of the twentieth century witnessed extraordinary change: the development of entirely new industries, such as television and computers; the decline of established industries, such as steel and textiles; the impact of international trade and competition on growing numbers of Americans. As the boom of the 1950s and 1960s gave way to "stagflation" in the 1970s, the 1980s became a time of extensive reorganization, which in turn laid the foundation for another boom in the 1990s. Still, as Mr. Wells notes, industry remained in private hands; political debate consistently returned to the same issues involving the proper role of government in the economy; and the country remained committed to an open international economic system. American Capitalism examines the development of economic policy (government spending, taxes, regulation, and monetary policy), economic structure (companies, markets, technology, and labor), and ideas about both, explaining the complex interaction of these factors over the past half-century. The book offers an essential short course on American economic development over these years.

Read more less

In a timely and provocative book, Philippe Legrain, formerly trade and economics correspondent for the Economist, argues that the idea and practice of globalization has been misrepresented by political activists who fail to understand its workings. Globalization, he insists, is neither a label for Americanization nor an excuse for worldwide corporate domination, and it does not eliminate local cultures or make governments irrelevant. Reassessing the pros and cons of the most controversial economic movement of our time, Mr. Legrain finds no real foundation for the alarm that globalization has generated among a variety of protest groups. His compellingly readable and balanced evaluation analyzes all the major forces in the economic equation—workers, companies, governments, national economies, industry and agriculture, patents and profits, money and finance—and makes a clear case that we are free to choose our future and to shape globalization for the benefit of all. Open World is a spirited and incisive work of socio-economic analysis and a clarion call to restore our faith in government. "At last a good book on globalization...lucid and persuasive."—Financial Times "If you have been convinced by Naomi Klein or Noreena Hertz, you owe it to yourself to read Legrain's persuasive defense."—New Statesman "One of those rare books that grabs the conventional wisdom and turns it on its head....Anyone who cares about our world and its future should read it."—Jonathan Freedland

Read more less

What do the Dead Sea Scrolls and frog overlays have to do with performing Shakespeare? They're both part of Louis Fantasia's approach in Instant Shakespeare. Mr. Fantasia, the first American to direct at the Shakespeare Globe Centre and a distinguished member of the international theatre community, has developed a pragmatic and uniquely American performance technique. Expanded and refined in performances and workshops throughout the world, Instant Shakespeare allows performers, directors, and teachers of all cultures and levels of experience to demystify Shakespeare and perform his texts in ways that are clear, fresh, and unpretentious. Mr. Fantasia's methods are solidly grounded in a rigorous analysis of the text and structure of Shakespeare's plays, and enriched by his insight into Elizabethan performance practices gleaned from his intimate association with the reconstruction of the Globe. Through Instant Shakespeare, novices and professionals alike achieve the textual clarity, nuanced characters, and dynamic actions that drive the most vigorous Shakespearean performances. Mr. Fantasia's respectful but irreverent approach pinpoints the shortcomings of contemporary Shakespeare practice and training, particularly generic and postmodern interpretations, and confronts theatre artists with the importance of conscious personal responsibility for the creative process. Employing analogies from music and architecture, he insists upon the hard and sometimes tedious work that necessarily underlies solid artistic choices. Mr. Fantasia shows how to understand Shakespeare's vocabulary as well as the structure and essential dramatic event of each play. He provides exercise monologues, exercise scenes, and tools for textual analysis; explains correct breathing; and lays out his philosophies of training and performance.

Read more less

In an unprecedented television program last year, Woody Allen spoke to the camera for the first time about the entire range of his work, in an interview with Richard Schickel, the distinguished film critic and historian. Mr. Allen talked about how he does it, why he does it, its roots in his early life, and his current thinking about the state of his art. The result Woody Allen: A Life in Film, was one of the most popular and critically acclaimed programs in the history of Turner Classic Movies. But the presentation contained only a small fraction of Mr. Schickel's four-hour interview with the famed writer-director-actor. This new book reprints the complete conversation between the two men and includes a long essay of introduction by Mr. Schickel, which places Woody Allen's entire career in critical perspective. Readers will find Mr. Allen's reflections on his major preoccupations—the battle of the sexes; the conflict between reality and fantasy in his major films; mortality, religion, and the role that chance plays in the unfolding of our lives. The book also offers insights into Mr. Allen's working methods as a writer and the growth of his skills as a director, as well as his assessment of himself as an actor and his surprising views of his long life in the public eye. Brief but sharply honed, Woody Allen: A Life in Film is an essential book for anyone seeking to understand the life and times of one of the most important and least understood American filmmakers of our era.

Read more less

"If there's anyone doing sports who is even close, I haven't read him."—Mike Royko. Ira Berkow's stories in the sports pages of the New York Times transcend what we know as "sportswriting." Mr. Berkow has a clear understanding of the games he reports, but he also has a sharp eye for the lives of the players, an appreciation of the larger social context, and–not least–an affinity for the well-turned phrase. The Minority Quarterback contains thirty-eight examples of his craft. His subjects have often been touched, transformed, enriched, or, in some cases, destroyed by circumstances that may have nothing to do with their sports connection. The centerpiece of the book is Mr. Berkow's widely admired story of a white quarterback who chose to play football at an all-black college in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and what happened to him. Like most of his stories, it offers a surprising perspective and is certain to provoke. But Mr. Berkow can also capture the playfulness of Muhammad Ali, the dignity of Arthur Ashe, the intensity of Michael Jordan, or the buffoonery of Marge Schott. He can report engagingly on lunch at Lutéce with Chuck Norris, or describe the carnival atmosphere of Jake La Motta's wedding in Las Vegas. The Minority Quarterback is a book for anyone who loves good writing; for sports lovers especially, these pieces are candy treats–but without soft centers.

Read more less

For educated and tolerant Westerners, it is extremely difficult to imagine the dangerous power that anti-Semitism has enjoyed in modern Europe and impossible to grasp how it could have led to the unique horrors of the Holocaust. To study the origins and history of anti-Semitism by itself helps little. To fully grasp the dangerous potential of racism we must also know the relationships between the fantasies of the anti-Semites and the long-term historical development of various nations. In The Politics of Hate, John Weiss shows how anti-Semitism and racism developed as a major element in the European political process from the late nineteenth century to the Holocaust. Concentrating on the experience of Germany, Austria, France, and Poland, Mr. Weiss traces the combination of ideas and national cultures that brought venomous consequences to political life and spelled difficulty and then doom for Jews. In a separate chapter on Italy, he explains why anti-Semitism never took hold there, and why even during World War II, under Nazi control, Jews in Italy were relatively protected. The reasons for these developments—why Germany initiated the Holocaust, why the Austrians supplied so many killers, why a million French fascists could not damage the Jews until the Vichy government came to power, why anti-Semitism was far stronger in Eastern than in Western Europe—help us understand why the politics of racial hate succeed and what can be done about it.

Read more less

A splendid photographic essay with an international perspective, Hospital ranges across national boundaries to record the realities and issues behind the scenes of one of the world’s essential institutions, the modern hospital. In a time when adequate health care has become one of the most important necessities in most countries, the hospital represents a great tributary of expertise and compassion. It is an institution governed by the science and art of its medical care, yet it reflects the socioeconomic and cultural pressures peculiar to its setting. With a deft eye for the telling situation, Stephen Feldman has chronicled the life and lives of patients and staff at hospitals throughout the world in almost 150 superb black-and-white pictures. Karine Douplitzky supplies the accompanying text. Hospital reveals a meeting place where professionals and the public intersect, a place of dialogue between physicians and their patients, where people’s needs and a nation’s demands are brought into singular focus. The book suggests a tension between the way in which Western medicine is idealized and the way it is applied—which often depends upon what a particular culture chooses to understand as "good" medicine. What, Hospital asks, becomes of the exported model of Western medical care after it has passed through the filter of a national or regional sensibility? These stunning photographs and discerning text offer surprising answers.

Read more less

"Each of these little books is witty and dramatic and creates a sense of time, place, and character....I cannot think of a better way to introduce oneself and one’s friends to Western civilization."—Katherine A. Powers, Boston Globe. "Well-written, clear and informed, they have a breezy wit about them....I find them hard to stop reading."—Richard Bernstein, New York Times. "Witty, illuminating, and blessedly concise."—Jim Holt, Wall Street Journal. These brief and enlightening explorations of our greatest thinkers bring their ideas to life in entertaining and accessible fashion. Philosophical thought is deciphered and made comprehensible and interesting to almost everyone. Far from being a novelty, each book is a highly refined appraisal of the philosopher and his work, authoritative and clearly presented.

Read more less

In this history of American agriculture over the last century, Mr. Hurt shows how farm men and women increasingly looked to the federal government—for technical information, regulation of business practices, and intervention in the agricultural economy. He surveys the major policy changes that helped shape farming both as a business and as a way of life. The best history of twentieth-century American agriculture I've ever read. A fine, fine book. —Peter A. Coclanis

Read more less

Confronting the dilemmas of modernist and postmodernist thought, Roger Kimball in this new collection of his work explores the literary and philosophical underpinnings of modernity as well as the state of our culture today. Experiments Against Reality displays the sophistication, breadth of knowledge, and clarity of argument that have made Mr. Kimball one of the most trenchant critics of our contemporary culture. He begins by considering the influential poet and theorist T. E. Hulme, and shows how the work of Eliot, Auden, Wallace Stevens, Robert Musil, Elias Canetti, and others can be seen as efforts to articulate a convincing alternative to the intellectual and spiritual desolations of the age. Turning to the philosophical tradition, Mr. Kimball suggests how figures from Mill and Nietzsche to Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, Sartre, Heidegger, Foucault, and Roger Scruton have addressed — or in many cases evaded — the defining moral imperatives of modernity. Finally he steps back to consider more generally the career of contemporary culture — the trivializing nature of the contemporary art world; the academic attack on historical truth and scientific rationality; the fate of the "two cultures" controversy. "Enlightenment," Mr. Kimball writes, "sought to emancipate man by liberating reason and battling against superstition. But reason liberated entirely from tradition has turned out to be rancorous and hubristic — in short, something irrational." Experiments Against Reality offers continuing evidence of Mr. Kimball's stature as one of our most important cultural critics.

Read more less

An informal social history—rich and surprising—of the centuries old relationship between cows and humans. A far from humdrum book—it will open even jaundiced eyes. —Larry McMurtry

Read more less

Since the publication of his monumental Destruction of the European Jews forty years ago, Raul Hilberg has been the acknowledged master of Holocaust historians. In Sources of Holocaust Research he distills a lifetime of scholarly investigation into an indispensable primer on the use of sources in the writing of Holocaust history. "It is not a manual or epistemological treatise," Mr. Hilberg advises, "but an analysis of the types of materials, their composition, style, content, and usability." He goes on to describe, first, the "exterior" examination and classification of sources; next the "interior" view—the configuration, characteristic style, and highly selective content of the sources; and, finally, what may be extracted from them, considering the intrinsic problems of the material itself and the "external conditions." Throughout Mr. Hilberg makes use of a rich fund of examples and anecdotes to illustrate his principles. The result is a book that anyone seriously interested in Holocaust research must have.

Read more less

In this handbook for King Lear, Alistair McCallum guides readers through the difficulties of plot and language, leaving them free to enjoy the depth, beauty, and vitality of Shakespeare's work. It is a superb introduction to the play.

Read more less

"Each of these little books is witty and dramatic and creates a sense of time, place, and character....I cannot think of a better way to introduce oneself and one’s friends to Western civilization."—Katherine A. Powers, Boston Globe. "Well-written, clear and informed, they have a breezy wit about them....I find them hard to stop reading."—Richard Bernstein, New York Times. "Witty, illuminating, and blessedly concise."—Jim Holt, Wall Street Journal. These brief and enlightening explorations of our greatest thinkers bring their ideas to life in entertaining and accessible fashion. Philosophical thought is deciphered and made comprehensive and interesting to almost everyone. Far from being a novelty, each book is a highly refined appraisal of the philosopher and his work, authoritative and clearly presented.

Read more less

As the 2000 presidential campaign has once again demonstrated, political journalism is an intrusive and nettlesome trade. More important, it is freighted with power—power to do good and also harm. But how much of power is real, and how much mere perception? Prize-winning reporter Robert Shogan draws on the lessons of seven presidential elections to answer these questions in Bad News. He shows how, amidst the upheavals of the 1960s, the press emerged as what many believed was the new dominant force in presidential politics. But as reporters moved into the power vacuum created by the demise of party vitality and the authority of the political bosses, they soon found themselves serving mainly as the instruments of a new political ruling class. The media, Mr. Shogan argues, now play the role of enablers. Without fully realizing it, they allow and abet the abuse of the political process by the candidates and their handlers. Bad News targets not only the machinations of the competing campaigns but the innate weaknesses and limitations of the press corps, with special attention to the 2000 election. “Too often journalists, myself included,” Mr. Shogan writes, “have been unwilling to learn what they do not know, and to make the information they possess relevant and important to their audiences. Too many of us, eager for attention, have been too willing to create stories that are larger than life and reality, and too impressed with our own importance to benefit from the criticism leveled against our work.” Rejecting conventional non-solutions, leavened by wit, and enriched by firsthand reportage, Bad News pierces the fog of pretense and hypocrisy that clouds the turbulent partnership of press and politicians. It provides voters with what they most need: a manual of self-defense against the excesses and distortions of presidential politics.

Read more less

In surveys of the plays that will help readers and viewers follow the action with ease and understanding, Robert Fallon opens a window to Shakespeare's time while illuminating the timelessness of his works. Mr. Fallon examines the most frequently staged plays scene by scene, and those less frequently performed act by act. He provides intelligent readers with incisive and engaging commentary on character, theme, setting, poetry, and stage history. Wonderfully reader-friendly. —William Kerrigan, University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Read more less

Back in print in a new paperback edition are these two volumes by A.L. Rowse that represent one of the great historical works of our time. They are a master historian's exploration of the social and cultural history of the Elizabethan Age. In The Life of the Society, Mr. Rowse surveys the life of each class of Englishmen from the Court downward, and presents a remarkable portrait of Elizabethan life and of the mentality, conscious and unconscious, to which the way of life gave rise. He portrays the life of the body as well as the life of the mind, including food and sanitation, sports and clothing, customs and beliefs, witchcraft and astrology—even the sex life of Elizabethans. In The Cultural Achievement he chronicles the astonishingly rich cultural flowering that marked the reign of Elizabeth I. He brings vividly to life the age's poetry, music, science, painting, sculpture, minor arts, and, above all, the tightly knit world of the theatre. Abundantly illustrated, together these volumes offer a richly rewarding reading experience. "The book is so tightly packed with fascinating facts and fresh material that anyone at all seriously interested in Elizabethan England should delight in it."—New York Times. "The Elizabethan Renaissance is created in such brilliant color and clarity that the reader can never forget it."—Irving Stone.

Read more less

The century-long struggle over the boundaries of sexual propriety and morality is the subject of Kevin White's rich account of American attitudes toward sex. Mr. White explores this great and continuing cultural conflict in the full context of Americans' ambiguous dialogue with their Victorian legacy. Incisive and authoritative....A remarkably nuanced analysis of Americans' obsession with sex. —John C. Burnham, Ohio State University. A bold and engaging survey...highly readable. —William L. O'Neill. American Ways Series.

Read more less

This remarkable, innovative book portrays one of the great American experiences in microcosm. Gerald McFarland tells the story of U.S. westward expansion through the stories of his own ancestors—from their arrival in Massachusetts in 1630, through successive generations that moved west, at length reaching the West Coast in 1900. "A Scattered People enriches the literature and reminds readers that most early Americans lived as the Hardemans and the Adairs and the Browns lived. This is the real American history."—Choice. "The evocation of historical event through the microcosm of the individual life is moving....In these histories of ordinary men and women, McFarland discovers that 'few [Americans] actually rose from rags to riches.'"—Journal of American History. "Except for John Brown, who was a half brother of Mr. McFarland's great-great-grandmother, the people in this history are not famous, but, through the author's meticulous research, every one of them comes to life."—New Yorker. "Full of fascinating historical detail. It is especially valuable for the insight it provides into the way ordinary Americans of the 19th century experienced and confronted the issues and concerns of their time."—Library Journal.

Read more less

“Each of these little books is witty and dramatic and creates a sense of time, place, and character....I cannot think of a better way to introduce oneself and one’s friends to Western civilization.”—Katherine A. Powers, Boston Globe. “Well-written, clear and informed, they have a breezy wit about them....I find them hard to stop reading.”—Richard Bernstein, New York Times. “Witty, illuminating, and blessedly concise.”—Jim Holt, Wall Street Journal. These brief and enlightening explorations of our greatest thinkers bring their ideas to life in entertaining and accessible fashion. Philosophical thought is deciphered and made comprehensive and interesting to almost everyone. Far from being a novelty, each book is a highly refined appraisal of the philosopher and his work, authoritative and clearly presented.

Read more less

“Each of these little books is witty and dramatic and creates a sense of time, place, and character....I cannot think of a better way to introduce oneself and one’s friends to Western civilization.”—Katherine A. Powers, Boston Globe. “Well-written, clear and informed, they have a breezy wit about them....I find them hard to stop reading.”—Richard Bernstein, New York Times. “Witty, illuminating, and blessedly concise.”—Jim Holt, Wall Street Journal. These brief and enlightening explorations of our greatest thinkers bring their ideas to life in entertaining and accessible fashion. Philosophical thought is deciphered and made comprehensive and interesting to almost everyone. Far from being a novelty, each book is a highly refined appraisal of the philosopher and his work, authoritative and clearly presented.

Read more less

“Each of these little books is witty and dramatic and creates a sense of time, place, and character....I cannot think of a better way to introduce oneself and one’s friends to Western civilization.”—Katherine A. Powers, Boston Globe. “Well-written, clear and informed, they have a breezy wit about them....I find them hard to stop reading.”—Richard Bernstein, New York Times. “Witty, illuminating, and blessedly concise.”—Jim Holt, Wall Street Journal. These brief and enlightening explorations of our greatest thinkers bring their ideas to life in entertaining and accessible fashion. Philosophical thought is deciphered and made comprehensive and interesting to almost everyone. Far from being a novelty, each book is a highly refined appraisal of the philosopher and his work, authoritative and clearly presented.

Read more less

Jonathan Maslow here portrays thirteen scientists whom he calls “the luckiest men and women of all time”—the explorers who first mapped the tropical regions of the Americas and discovered the glorious biological orgy that is nature in the tropics. They were the first to color the chorus of tropical birds; the first to know the swiftness of the jaguar; the first to learn the loves of the orchid family and to collect the daunting variety of moths and butterflies and beetles; the first to run the rivers of the Amazon, to climb the Andes, and to dive the coral reefs of the Caribbean; and the first to unearth the ruins of America’s pre-Columbian civilizations. “They were and are,” Mr. Maslow writes, "the Indiana Joneses of science, plunging ahead often recklessly on the path to discovery—and emerging with fabulous tales of scientific adventure...an antidote to the dismal late-twentieth-century image of bloodless scientists separated from nature." From Alexander von Humboldt to Daniel Janzen, Mr. Maslow invites you to tag along into the field as he follows the explorers on their voyages and expeditions, offering a companion guide to their discoveries and a context for their imaginative quests.

Read more less

“Each of these little books is witty and dramatic and creates a sense of time, place, and character....I cannot think of a better way to introduce oneself and one’s friends to Western civilization.”—Katherine A. Powers, Boston Globe. “Well-written, clear and informed, they have a breezy wit about them....I find them hard to stop reading.”—Richard Bernstein, New York Times. “Witty, illuminating, and blessedly concise.”—Jim Holt, Wall Street Journal. These brief and enlightening explorations of our greatest thinkers bring their ideas to life in entertaining and accessible fashion. Philosophical thought is deciphered and made comprehensive and interesting to almost everyone. Far from being a novelty, each book is a highly refined appraisal of the philosopher and his work, authoritative and clearly presented.

Read more less

In Wittgenstein in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Wittgenstein's life and ideas, and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world. The book also includes selections from Wittgenstein's work; a brief list of suggested reading for those who wish to push further; and chronologies that place Wittgenstein within his own age and in the broader scheme of philosophy.

Read more less

“Each of these little books is witty and dramatic and creates a sense of time, place, and character....I cannot think of a better way to introduce oneself and one’s friends to Western civilization.”—Katherine A. Powers, Boston Globe. “Well-written, clear and informed, they have a breezy wit about them....I find them hard to stop reading.”—Richard Bernstein, New York Times. “Witty, illuminating, and blessedly concise.”—Jim Holt, Wall Street Journal. These brief and enlightening explorations of our greatest thinkers bring their ideas to life in entertaining and accessible fashion. Philosophical thought is deciphered and made comprehensive and interesting to almost everyone. Far from being a novelty, each book is a highly refined appraisal of the philosopher and his work, authoritative and clearly presented.

Read more less

Euripides' romantic melodrama of the reunion in Tauris of Iphigenia with the brother she thought was dead abounds in situations of danger and of touching reminiscence. In Mr. Rudall's new translation it becomes beautifully playable.

Read more less