Search results for ""author dan"

An NCSS Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People 2015Martha Gellhorn jumped at the chance to fly from Hong Kong to Lashio to report firsthand for Collier’s Weekly on the conflict between China and Japan. When she boarded the “small tatty plane” she was handed “a rough brown blanket and a brown paper bag for throwing up.” The flight took 16 hours, stopping to refuel twice, and was forced to dip and bob through Japanese occupied airspace.Reporting Under Fire tells readers about women who, like Gellhorn, risked their lives to bring back scoops from the front lines. Margaret Bourke-White rode with Patton’s Third Army and brought back the first horrific photos of the Buchenwald concentration camp. Marguerite Higgins typed stories while riding in the front seat of an American jeep that was fleeing the North Korean Army. And during the Guatemalan civil war, Georgie Anne Geyer had to evade an assassin sent by the rightwing Mano Blanco, seeking revenge for her reports of their activities.These 16 remarkable profiles illuminate not only the inherent danger in these reporters’ jobs, but also their struggle to have these jobs at all. Without exception, these war correspondents share a singular ambition: to answer an inner call driving them to witness war firsthand, and to share what they learn via words or images.

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When does the student become the master? At what cost? Grieving the loss of his sensei, the master swordsman Yamashita, Connor Burke struggles with the challenges of recovery from the wounds received struggling to defend Yamashita as well as the heavy burden of assuming leadership of Yamashita’s dojo. Embroiled in controversy with a wealthy donor over control of the dojo, Burke welcomes the distraction of an investigation into a noted yoga guru’s unexplained death. Winston Tambor is a charismatic yoga teacher who died under mysterious circumstances. Some believe that Win’s death was caused by the unleashing of mysterious yogic power from the discipline of Kundalini, but some investigators think differently. They need someone with an insider’s knowledge of the esoteric aspects of Asian disciplines, with the research skills needed to separate mystic hype from reality, who also has had some experience with criminal investigations. Mickey Burke, watching his brother Connor struggle with rehabilitation in the aftermath of Yamashita’s death, thinks Connor will be perfect for the project. Connor Burke welcomes the distraction of Montoya’s investigation of Tambor’s death. He soon discovers that solving this mystery is as dangerous as it is difficult. Burke is plunged once again into the world of esoteric Asian disciplines. Where the relations between master and disciple, and the conflict of perpetuating ancient codes of honor can generate very lethal consequences. Especially when driven by money and celebrity.

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Brother detectives Frank and Joe face the dangers of Black Bear Mountain once again in the twentieth book in the thrilling Hardy Boys Adventures series.Frank and Joe are back on Black Bear Mountain, the scene of a previous wilderness adventure and mind-bending mystery. This time, the brothers are checking in on Dr. K, a friend they made during their first trip. Dr. K is a fan of living off the grid, but he’s been MIA long enough to cause worry in the small mountain town. And so the teenage detectives Black Bear Mountain relied on before have been called in to help once again. It’s not a good start to the investigation when Frank and Joe’s ATV is put out of commission by a falling tree. Then their camp, including their radio—their only way to contact the outside world—is destroyed by wildlife searching for food. And when they finally reach Dr. K’s research station, they find his cabin has been cleaned out and abandoned—the only current resident is an angry skunk. Frank and Joe may have been better prepared for their second Black Bear Mountain adventure, but they’re not having any more luck this time around. In fact, they’ve been downright unlucky. Is someone trying to sabotage their mission? And if they are, how can the brothers stop this invisible foe?

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Told in alternating tales at once haunting and redemptive, A Tangled Mercy is a quintessentially American epic rooted in heartbreaking true events examining the harrowing depths of human brutality and betrayal, and our enduring hope for freedom and forgiveness. After the sudden death of her troubled mother, struggling Harvard grad student Kate Drayton walks out on her lecture—and her entire New England life. Haunted by unanswered questions and her own uncertain future, she flees to Charleston, South Carolina, the place where her parents met, convinced it holds the key to understanding her fractured family and saving her career in academics. Kate is determined to unearth groundbreaking information on a failed 1822 slave revolt—the subject of her mother’s own research. Nearly two centuries earlier, Tom Russell, a gifted blacksmith and slave, grappled with a terrible choice: arm the uprising spearheaded by members of the fiercely independent African Methodist Episcopal Church or keep his own neck out of the noose and protect the woman he loves. Kate’s attempts to discover what drove her mother’s dangerous obsession with Charleston’s tumultuous history are derailed by a horrific massacre in the very same landmark church. In the unimaginable aftermath, Kate discovers a family she never knew existed as the city unites with a powerful message of hope and forgiveness for the world.

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More than 150 years after the end of the Civil War, scores of websites, articles, and organizations repeat claims that anywhere between 500 and 100,000 free and enslaved African Americans fought willingly as soldiers in the Confederate army. But as Kevin M. Levin argues in this carefully researched book, such claims would have shocked anyone who served in the army during the war itself. Levin explains that imprecise contemporary accounts, poorly understood primary-source material, and other misrepresentations helped fuel the rise of the black Confederate myth. Moreover, Levin shows that belief in the existence of black Confederate soldiers largely originated in the 1970s, a period that witnessed both a significant shift in how Americans remembered the Civil War and a rising backlash against African Americans' gains in civil rights and other realms.Levin also investigates the roles that African Americans actually performed in the Confederate army, including personal body servants and forced laborers. He demonstrates that regardless of the dangers these men faced in camp, on the march, and on the battlefield, their legal status remained unchanged. Even long after the guns fell silent, Confederate veterans and other writers remembered these men as former slaves and not as soldiers, an important reminder that how the war is remembered often runs counter to history.

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Despite the lack of medical consensus regarding alcoholism as a disease, many people readily accept the concept of addiction as a clinical as well as a social disorder. An alcoholic is a victim of social circumstance and genetic destiny. Although one might imagine that this dual approach is a reflection of today's enlightened and sympathetic society, historian Sarah Tracy discovers that efforts to medicalize alcoholism are anything but new. Alcoholism in America tells the story of physicians, politicians, court officials, and families struggling to address the danger of excessive alcohol consumption at the turn of the century. Beginning with the formation of the American Association for the Cure of Inebriates in 1870 and concluding with the enactment of Prohibition in 1920, this study examines the effect of the disease concept on individual drinkers and their families and friends, as well as the ongoing battle between policymakers and the professional medical community for jurisdiction over alcohol problems. Tracy captures the complexity of the political, professional, and social negotiations that have characterized the alcoholism field both yesterday and today. Tracy weaves American medical history, social history, and the sociology of knowledge into a narrative that probes the connections among reform movements, social welfare policy, the specialization of medicine, and the social construction of disease. Her insights will engage all those interested in America's historic and current battles with addiction.

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Ever wished there was a book about some of the weirdest and most disturbing stories in the Bible that was also hilarious to read? You've found it. It turns out, there's a lot of strange stuff in the Bible, and this book takes a tongue-in-cheek look at all of it.Approximately 80 percent of Americans admit they haven't read the Bible. If they did, they'd be pleasantly surprised by its impressive quantity of sex and poop jokes.David danced naked. Noah was basically a moonshining hillbilly. Ezekiel baked poop bread. Herod was eaten by worms. Jesus cursed a fig tree, just to prove he could. Mark went streaking. Hosea married a prostitute. Lot was date-raped by his own daughters. This unique book: Combines humor and education to give better insight into some of the strangest parts of the Bible Organized by topic (poop, genitalia, weird violence, prostitution, gratuitous nudity, seemingly pointless miracles, and other fun stuff) Is a thoroughly researched (really!), reverent, and insightful look at the best-selling book in history Makes a perfect gift for pastors and white elephant parties From Elisha, who loosed homicidal bears on some kids because they called him bald (it's a long story), to the story of Ehud, who gets away with assassinating a tyrannical king because his servants think said king is taking a dump (also a long story), this book examines and casts new light on some of the Bible's stranger moments.

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This fantasy novel follows a scholar's quest to choose the next ruler of her nation amidst lies, conspiracy, and assassinationWhen the death of Iron Queen Sarelin Brey fractures the realm of Elira, Lysande Prior, the palace scholar and the queen’s closest friend, is appointed Councillor. Publically, Lysande must choose the next monarch from amongst the city-rulers vying for the throne. Privately, she seeks to discover which ruler murdered the queen, suspecting the use of magic. Resourceful, analytical, and quiet, Lysande appears to embody the motto she was raised with: everything in its place. Yet while she hides her drug addiction from her new associates, she cannot hide her growing interest in power. She becomes locked in a game of strategy with the city-rulers – especially the erudite prince Luca Fontaine, who seems to shift between ally and rival. Further from home, an old enemy is stirring: the magic-wielding White Queen is on the move again, and her alliance with a traitor among the royal milieu poses a danger not just to the peace of the realm, but to the survival of everything that Lysande cares about. In a world where the low-born keep their heads down, Lysande must learn to fight an enemy who wears many guises… even as she wages her own battle between ambition and restraint.

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An eerie and absorbing novel following a criminal psychologist who has discovered shocking and possibly dangerous connections between a serial killer and her stepdaughter Criminal psychologist Seonkyeong receives an unexpected call one day. Yi Byeongdo, a serial killer whose gruesome murders shook the world, wants to be interviewed. Yi Byeongdo, who has refused to speak to anyone until now, asks specifically for her. Seonkyeong agrees out of curiosity. That same day Hayeong, her husband’s eleven-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, shows up at their door after her grandparents, with whom she lived after her mother passed away, die in a sudden fire. Seonkyeong wants her to feel at home, but is gradually unnerved as the young girl says very little and acts strangely. At work and at home, Seonkyeong starts to unravel the pasts of the two new arrivals in her life and begins to see startling similarities. Hayeong looks at her the same way Yi Byeongdo does when he recounts the abuse he experienced as a child; Hayeong’s serene expression masks a temper that she can’t control. Plus, the story she tells about her grandparents’ death, and her mother’s before that, deeply troubles Seonkyeong. So much so that Yi Byeongdo picks up on it and starts giving her advice. Written with exquisite precision and persistent creepiness, The Only Child is psychological suspense at its very best.

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Every year, ten men from Ness, at the northern tip of the Isle of Lewis, sail north-east for some forty miles to a remote rock called Sulasgeir. Their mission is to catch and harvest the guga; the almost fully grown gannet chicks nesting on the two hundred foot high cliffs that circle the tiny island, which is barely half a mile long. After spending a fortnight in the arduous conditions that often prevail there, they return home with around two thousand of the birds, pickled and salted and ready for the tables of Nessmen and women both at home and abroad. The Guga Hunters tells the story of the men who voyage to Sulasgeir each year and the district they hail from, bringing out the full colour of their lives, the humour and drama of their exploits. They speak of the laughter that seasons their time together on Sulasgeir, of the risks and dangers they have faced. It also provides a fascinating insight into the social history of Ness, the culture and way-of-life that lies behind the world of the Guga Hunters, the timeless nature of the hunt, and reveals the hunt's connections to the traditions of other North Atlantic countries. Told in his district's poetry and prose, English and - occasionally - Gaelic, Donald S. Murray shows how the spirit of a community is preserved in this most unique of exploits.

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'Powerful' Sunday Times 'Electric' Danya Kukafka 'Vital' Katie Gutierrez 'A triumph' Alice Ryan 'A powerful read' Heat 'Read this book!' Angie Cruz 'An instant classic' Morning Star 'Deserves all the hype' Glamour 'Crackles with life' Xochitl Gonzalez 'The book of the year' Rene Denfeld Carmen and Grace have been inseparable since they were little girls – more like sisters than cousins, survivors of a childhood marked by neglect and addiction. For too long, all they had was each other. That is, until Doña Durka swept into their lives and changed everything, taking Grace into her home and playing an outsize role in Carmen’s upbringing too. But Durka is more than a beneficent force in their Bronx neighbourhood. She’s also the leader of an underground drug empire, a larger-than-life matriarch who understands the importance of taking what power she can in a world too often ruled by violent men. So when Durka dies suddenly, Carmen and Grace’s lives are thrown into chaos. Grace has been primed to take over and has grand plans to expand the business, but Carmen is ready to move on – from Durka’s shadow, and from always looking over her shoulder in fear. As tough and tender as its main characters, Carmen and Grace is a devastatingly wise and intimate story about the bonds of female friendship, ambition and found family.

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Think of the Renaissance and you might only picture the work of fine artists such as Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo and Van Eyck. Or architecture could spring to mind and you might think of St Peter’s in Rome and the Doge’s Palace in Venice. Or you might consider scientists like Galileo and Copernicus. But then let’s not forget the contribution of thinkers like Machiavelli, Thomas More or Erasmus. Someone else, though, might plump for music or poets and dramatists – after all, there was Dante and Shakespeare. Because when it comes to the Renaissance, there’s an embarrassment of riches to choose from. From art to architecture, music to literature, science to medicine, political thought to religion, The Renaissance expertly guides the reader through the cultural and intellectual flowering that Europe witnessed from the 14th to the 17th centuries. Ranging from the origins of the Renaissance in medieval Florence to the Counter- Reformation, the book explains how a revival in the study in Antiquity was able to flourish across the Italian states, before spreading to Iberia and north across Europe. Nimbly moving from perspective in paintings to Copernicus’s understanding of the Universe, from Martin Luther’s challenge to the Roman Catholic Church to the foundations of modern school education, The Renaissance is a highly accessible and colourful journey along the cultural contours of Europe from the Late Middle Ages to the early modern period.

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Black Market Business is a grassroots social history of the clandestine market for sex in colonial Tonkin. Lively and well told, it explores the ways in which sex workers, managers, and clients evaded the colonial regulation system in the turbulent economy of the interwar years. Christina Elizabeth Firpo argues that the confluence of economic, demographic, and cultural changes sweeping late colonial Tonkin created spaces of tension in which the interwar black market sex industry thrived. The clandestine sex industry flourished in sites of legal inconsistency, cultural changes, economic disparity, rural-urban division, and demographic shifts. As a nexus of the many tensions besetting late colonial Tonkin, the black market sex industry serves as a useful lens through which to examine these tensions and the ways they affected marginalized populations. More specifically, an investigation of this black market shows how a particular population of impoverished women—a group regrettably understudied by historians—experienced the tensions. Drawing on an astonishingly diverse and multilingual source base, Black Market Business includes detailed cases of juvenile prostitution, human trafficking, and debt bondage arrangements in sex work, as well as cases in Tonkin's bars, hotels, singing houses, and dance clubs. Using GIS technology and big data sets to track individual actors in history, it serves as a model for teaching new methodological approaches to conducting social histories of women and marginalized people.

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Directed by anthropologist Alexander Lesser in 1935, the Santa Fe Laboratory of Anthropology sponsored a field school in southwestern Oklahoma that focused on the neighboring Kiowas. During two months, graduate students compiled more than 1,300 pages of single-spaced field notes derived from cross-interviewing thirty-five Kiowas. These eyewitness and first-generation reflections on the horse and buffalo days are undoubtedly the best materials available for reconstructing pre-reservation Kiowa beliefs and rituals. The field school compiled massive data resulting in a number of publications on this formerly nomadic Plains tribe, though the planned collaborative ethnographies never materialized. The extensive Kiowa field notes, which contain invaluable information, remained largely unpublished until now. In Kiowa Belief and Ritual, Benjamin R. Kracht reconstructs Kiowa cosmology during the height of the horse and buffalo culture from field notes pertaining to cosmology, visions, shamans, sorcery, dream shields, tribal bundles, and the now-extinct Sun Dance ceremony. These topics are interpreted through the Kiowa concept of a power force permeating the universe. Additional data gleaned from the field notes of James Mooney and Alice Marriott enrich the narrative. Drawing on more than thirty years of field experiences, Kracht’s discussion of how Indigenous notions of power are manifested today significantly enhances the existing literature concerning Plains religions.

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In 1971 RAND consultant Daniel J. Ellsberg made national news by handing over to the New York Times a top secret Pentagon study on the Vietnam War. Publication of the Pentagon Papers rocked the American defense establishment and fanned the flames of the growing antiwar protest movement in the United States.By late that year, most of the Pentagon Papers had been released to the public. Four volumes, however, were held back, Ellsberg himself conceding their special sensitivity. These so-called negotiating volumes deal with the diplomacy of the war between 1964 and 1968. Published in book form with extensive commentary, they provide an indispensable source for the study of diplomacy during the Vietnam conflict.These documents cover thirteen major peace contacts and initiatives that took place during the presidency of Lyndon Johnson. They furnish a wealth of new information about the American bombing pauses of May 1965 and January 1966; several third-party peace initiatives; and a still virtually unknown 1965 contact, mysteriously called “xyz,” between North Vietnamese and American diplomats in Paris. They afford the most complete documentation yet available of the Polish-sponsored peace move codenamed “marigold” and the abortive peace initiative launched early in 1967 by British Prime Minister Wilson and Soviet Premier Kosygin.The utility of this important book is greatly enhanced by Herring’s extensive annotation, highly informative introductory essays, and helpful glossaries.

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In the 1980s, Egypt witnessed a growing revival of religiosity among large sectors of the population, including artists. Many pious stars retired from art, “repented” from “sinful” activities, and dedicated themselves to worship, preaching, and charity. Their public conversions were influential in spreading piety to the Egyptian upper class during the 1990s, which in turn enabled the development of pious markets for leisure and art, thus facilitating the return of artists as veiled actresses or religiously committed performers.Revisiting the story she began in “A Trade like Any Other”: Female Singers and Dancers in Egypt, Karin van Nieuwkerk draws on extensive fieldwork among performers to offer a unique history of the religious revival in Egypt through the lens of the performing arts. She highlights the narratives of celebrities who retired in the 1980s and early 1990s, including their spiritual journeys and their influence on the “pietization” of their fans, among whom are the wealthy, relatively secular, strata of Egyptian society. Van Nieuwkerk then turns to the emergence of a polemic public sphere in which secularists and Islamists debated Islam, art, and gender in the 1990s. Finally, she analyzes the Islamist project of “art with a mission” and the development of Islamic aesthetics, questioning whether the outcome has been to Islamize popular art or rather to popularize Islam. The result is an intimate thirty-year history of two spheres that have tremendous importance for Egypt—art production and piety.

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The USS Monitor famously battled the CSS Virginia (the armored and refitted USS Merrimack) at Hampton Roads in March 1862. This updated edition of David A. Mindell's classic account of the ironclad warships and the human dimension of modern warfare commemorates the 150th anniversary of this historic encounter. Mindell explores how mariners-fighting "blindly", below the waterline-lived in and coped with the metal monster they called the "iron coffin". He investigates how the ironclad technology, new to war in the nineteenth century, changed not only the tools but also the experience of combat and anticipated today's world of mechanized, pushbutton warfare. The writings of William Frederick Keeler, the ship's paymaster, inform much of this book, as do the experiences of everyman sailor George Geer, who held Keeler in some contempt. Mindell uses their compelling stories, and those of other shipmates, to recreate the thrills and dangers of living and fighting aboard this superweapon. Recently, pieces of the Monitor wreck have been raised from their watery grave, and with them, information about the ship continues to be discovered. A new epilogue describes the recovery of the Monitor turret and its display at the USS Monitor Museum in Newport News, Virginia. This sensitive and enthralling history of the USS Monitor ensures that this fateful ship, and the men who served on it, will be remembered for generations to come.

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Welcome to Nikki Maxwell's aDORKable world in the second book in the mega-selling Dork Diaries series – now with over 50 million copies in print worldwide!Nikki is finally adjusting to life at her new school: she's made some real friends and her major crush, Brandon, has even asked to be her science partner! But when Nikki overhears mean girl Mackenzie bragging about going to the Halloween dance with Brandon, she's gutted and decides to go to her little sister's party instead. Then she discovers Mackenzie was lying. Could her dream of going to the party with Brandon still come true? With a HUGE global fanbase, Dork Diaries is the perfect series for fans of Lottie Brooks, Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Tom Gates. Don’t miss out! I LOVE PARIS, the brand new DORK DIARIES, is out now! Have you read all the DORK DIARIES series?Dork Diaries Dork Diaries 2: Party Time Dork Diaries 3: Pop Star Dork Diaries 4: Skating Sensation Dork Diaries 5: Dear Dork Dork Diaries 6: Holiday Heartbreak Dork Diaries 7: TV Star Dork Diaries 8: Once Upon a Dork Dork Diaries 9: Drama Queen Dork Diaries 10: Puppy Love Dork Diaries 11: Frenemies Forever Dork Diaries 12: Crush Catastrophe Dork Diaries 13: Birthday Drama Dork Diaries 14: Spectacular Superstar Dork Diaries 15: I Love Paris! - Out now!

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This comprehensive book deals with the use of novel materials such as plant-derived agents and advanced nanocomposites for the removal of heavy metals, nitrates, and synthetic dyes. Water is an essential component for living organisms on planet earth and its pollution is one of the critical global environmental issues today. The influx of significant quantities of organic and inorganic waste, sediments, surfactants, synthetic dyes, sewage, and heavy metals into all types of water bodies has been increasing substantially over the past century due to rapid industrialization, population growth, agricultural activities, and other geological and environmental changes. These pollutants are very dangerous and are posing serious threat to us all. Advanced Materials for Wastewater Treatment brings together innovative methodologies and research strategies to remove toxic effluents from wastewaters. With contributions from leading scientists from all around the world, the book provides a comprehensive coverage of the current literature, up-to-date overviews of all aspects of toxic chemical remediation including the role of nanomaterials. Together they showcase in a very lucid manner an array of technologies that complement the traditional as well as advanced treatment practices of textile effluents. In particular, the book provides: Up-to-date overviews of all aspects of toxic chemical remediation The role of plants and abundantly available agro-wastes in the remediation of wastewater The removal of nitrates from wastewater using nanocomposites

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The follow-up to the groundbreaking Black Queer Studies, the edited collection No Tea, No Shade brings together nineteen essays from the next generation of scholars, activists, and community leaders doing work on black gender and sexuality. Building on the foundations laid by the earlier volume, this collection's contributors speak new truths about the black queer experience while exemplifying the codification of black queer studies as a rigorous and important field of study. Topics include "raw" sex, pornography, the carceral state, gentrification, gender nonconformity, social media, the relationship between black feminist studies and black trans studies, the black queer experience throughout the black diaspora, and queer music, film, dance, and theater. The contributors both disprove naysayers who believed black queer studies to be a passing trend and respond to critiques of the field's early U.S. bias. Deferring to the past while pointing to the future, No Tea, No Shade pushes black queer studies in new and exciting directions.Contributors. Jafari S. Allen, Marlon M. Bailey, Zachary Shane Kalish Blair, La Marr Jurelle Bruce, Cathy J. Cohen, Jennifer DeClue, Treva Ellison, Lyndon K. Gill, Kai M. Green, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Kwame Holmes, E. Patrick Johnson, Shaka McGlotten, Amber Jamilla Musser, Alison Reed, Ramón H. Rivera-Servera, Tanya Saunders, C. Riley Snorton, Kaila Story, Omise'eke Natasha Tinsley, Julia Roxanne Wallace, Kortney Ziegler

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First runner-up for the 2019 John Leo and Dana Heller Award from the Popular Culture Association Surprisingly, Hollywood is still clumsily grappling with its representation of sexual minorities, and LGBTQ filmmakers struggle to find a place in the mainstream movie industry. However, organizations outside the mainstream are making a difference, helping to produce and distribute authentic stories that are both by and for LGBTQ people. Turning the Page introduces readers to three nonprofit organizations that, in very different ways, have each positively transformed the queer media landscape. David R. Coon takes readers inside In the Life Media, whose groundbreaking documentaries on the LGBTQ experience aired for over twenty years on public television stations nationwide. Coon reveals the successes of POWER UP, a nonprofit production company dedicated to mentoring filmmakers who can turn queer stories into fully realized features and short films. Finally, he turns to Three Dollar Bill Cinema, an organization whose film festivals help queer media find an audience and whose filmmaking camps for LGBTQ youth are nurturing the next generation of queer cinema. Combining a close analysis of specific films and video programs with extensive interviews of industry professionals, Turning the Page demonstrates how queer storytelling in visual media has the potential to empower individuals, strengthen communities, and motivate social justice activism.

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Home to Ellis Island, New Jersey has been the first stop for many immigrant groups for well over a century. Yet in this highly diverse state, some of the most anti-immigrant policies in the nation are being tested. American suburbs are home to increasing numbers of first and second-generation immigrants who may actually be bypassing the city to settle directly into the neighborhoods that their predecessors have already begun to plant roots in—a trajectory that leads to nativist ordinances and other forms of xenophobia. In Lady Liberty’s Shadow examines popular white perceptions of danger represented by immigrants and their children, as well the specter that lurks at the edges of suburbs in the shape of black and Latino urban underclasses and the ever more nebulous hazard of (presumed-Islamic) terrorism that threatening to undermine “life as we know it.” Robyn Magalit Rodriguez explores the impact of anti-immigrant municipal ordinances on a range of immigrant groups living in varied suburban communities, from undocumented Latinos in predominantly white suburbs to long-established Asian immigrants in “majority-minority” suburbs. The “American Dream” that suburban life is supposed to represent is shown to rest on a racialized, segregated social order meant to be enjoyed only by whites. Although it is a case study of New Jersey, In Lady Liberty’s Shadow offers crucial insights that can shed fresh light on the national immigration debate. For more information, go to: https://www.facebook.com/inlibertysshadow

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Home to Ellis Island, New Jersey has been the first stop for many immigrant groups for well over a century. Yet in this highly diverse state, some of the most anti-immigrant policies in the nation are being tested. American suburbs are home to increasing numbers of first and second-generation immigrants who may actually be bypassing the city to settle directly into the neighborhoods that their predecessors have already begun to plant roots in—a trajectory that leads to nativist ordinances and other forms of xenophobia. In Lady Liberty’s Shadow examines popular white perceptions of danger represented by immigrants and their children, as well the specter that lurks at the edges of suburbs in the shape of black and Latino urban underclasses and the ever more nebulous hazard of (presumed-Islamic) terrorism that threatening to undermine “life as we know it.” Robyn Magalit Rodriguez explores the impact of anti-immigrant municipal ordinances on a range of immigrant groups living in varied suburban communities, from undocumented Latinos in predominantly white suburbs to long-established Asian immigrants in “majority-minority” suburbs. The “American Dream” that suburban life is supposed to represent is shown to rest on a racialized, segregated social order meant to be enjoyed only by whites. Although it is a case study of New Jersey, In Lady Liberty’s Shadow offers crucial insights that can shed fresh light on the national immigration debate. For more information, go to: https://www.facebook.com/inlibertysshadow

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At a time when cycling in the United States rivaled baseball as the nation’s most popular professional sport, along came Reggie McNamara, a farmer’s son from Australia. Within a month of his arrival in the United States in 1913, he had earned the moniker “Iron Man” for his high tolerance of pain and his remarkable ability to recover from seemingly catastrophic injury. The nickname proved justified. Not only was he tough, he was also one of the best and highest-paid athletes in the world. During his thirty-year career, McNamara won seventeen punishing six-day races along with an inestimable number of shorter distance races, including high-profile events on three different continents, peaking in 1926–27 at the age of thirty-nine. The fans, media, and his fellow professionals all idolized him as an example of the true grit needed to succeed in this grueling and dangerous sport. Late in his career, however, hard drinking and injuries took their toll, and McNamara became estranged from his wife and children. He fought back just as he always had on the race course, conquering his addiction to alcohol and becoming one of the earliest success stories of Alcoholics Anonymous. In this humorous and exciting biography of the original Iron Man, Andrew M. Homan pulls McNamara back into the spotlight, depicting a flawed but beloved man whose success in those unrelenting six-day races came at a price.

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We are at a critical juncture in world politics. Nuclear strategy and policy have risen to the top of the global policy agenda, and issues ranging from a nuclear Iran to the global zero movement are generating sharp debate. The historical origins of our contemporary nuclear world are deeply consequential for contemporary policy, but it is crucial that decisions are made on the basis of fact rather than myth and misapprehension. In Nuclear Statecraft, Francis J. Gavin challenges key elements of the widely accepted narrative about the history of the atomic age and the consequences of the nuclear revolution.On the basis of recently declassified documents, Gavin reassesses the strategy of flexible response, the influence of nuclear weapons during the Berlin Crisis, the origins of and motivations for U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy, and how to assess the nuclear dangers we face today. In case after case, he finds that we know far less than we think we do about our nuclear history. Archival evidence makes it clear that decision makers were more concerned about underlying geopolitical questions than about the strategic dynamic between two nuclear superpowers.Gavin's rigorous historical work not only tells us what happened in the past but also offers a powerful tool to explain how nuclear weapons influence international relations. Nuclear Statecraft provides a solid foundation for future policymaking.

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Leaders around the globe have long turned to the armed forces as a "school for the nation." Debates over who serves continue to arouse passion today because the military's participation policies are seen as shaping politics beyond the military, specifically the politics of identity and citizenship. Yet how and when do these policies transform patterns of citizenship? Military service, Ronald R. Krebs argues, can play a critical role in bolstering minorities' efforts to grasp full and unfettered rights. Minority groups have at times effectively contrasted their people's battlefield sacrifices to the reality of inequity, compelling state leaders to concede to their claims. At the same time, military service can shape when, for what, and how minorities have engaged in political activism in the quest for meaningful citizenship. Employing a range of rich primary materials, Krebs shows how the military's participation policies shaped Arab citizens' struggles for first-class citizenship in Israel from independence to the mid-1980s and African Americans' quest for civil rights, from World War I to the Korean War. Fighting for Rights helps us make sense of contemporary debates over gays in the military and over the virtues and dangers of liberal and communitarian visions for society. It suggests that rhetoric is more than just a weapon of the weak, that it is essential to political exchange, and that politics rests on a dual foundation of rationality and culture.

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During the Cold War the concept of international security was understood in military terms as the threat or use of force by states. The end of EastÐWest hostilities, however, brought ‘critical’ perspectives to the fore as scholars sought to explain the emergence of new challenges to international stability, such as environmental degradation, immigration and terrorism. The second edition of this popular and highly respected text offers a wide-ranging and comprehensive analysis of the growing field of critical security studies. All the chapters have been fully revised and updated to map the on-going evolution of debates about international security since 1989, including the more recent shift in emphasis from critiques of the realist practices of states to those of global liberal governance. Topics covered include the relationship between security and change, identity, the production of danger, fear and trauma, human insecurity and emancipation. The book explores the meaning and use of these concepts and their relevance to real-life situations ranging from the War on Terror to the Arab Spring, migration, suffering in war, failed states and state-building, and the changing landscape of the international system, with the emergence of a multipolar world and the escalation of global climate change. Written with verve and clarity and incorporating new seminar activities and questions for class discussion, this book will be an invaluable resource for students of international relations and security studies.

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A practical guide to making good decisions in a world of missing dataIn the era of big data, it is easy to imagine that we have all the information we need to make good decisions. But in fact the data we have are never complete, and may be only the tip of the iceberg. Just as much of the universe is composed of dark matter, invisible to us but nonetheless present, the universe of information is full of dark data that we overlook at our peril. In Dark Data, data expert David Hand takes us on a fascinating and enlightening journey into the world of the data we don't see.Dark Data explores the many ways in which we can be blind to missing data and how that can lead us to conclusions and actions that are mistaken, dangerous, or even disastrous. Examining a wealth of real-life examples, from the Challenger shuttle explosion to complex financial frauds, Hand gives us a practical taxonomy of the types of dark data that exist and the situations in which they can arise, so that we can learn to recognize and control for them. In doing so, he teaches us not only to be alert to the problems presented by the things we don’t know, but also shows how dark data can be used to our advantage, leading to greater understanding and better decisions.Today, we all make decisions using data. Dark Data shows us all how to reduce the risk of making bad ones.

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The diverse cultures of the Caribbean have been shaped as much by hurricanes as they have by diplomacy, commerce, or the legacy of colonial rule. In this panoramic work of social history, Stuart Schwartz examines how Caribbean societies have responded to the dangers of hurricanes, and how these destructive storms have influenced the region's history, from the rise of plantations, to slavery and its abolition, to migrations, racial conflict, and war. Taking readers from the voyages of Columbus to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Schwartz looks at the ethical, political, and economic challenges that hurricanes posed to the Caribbean's indigenous populations and the different European peoples who ventured to the New World to exploit its riches. He describes how the United States provided the model for responding to environmental threats when it emerged as a major power and began to exert its influence over the Caribbean in the nineteenth century, and how the region's governments came to assume greater responsibilities for prevention and relief, efforts that by the end of the twentieth century were being questioned by free-market neoliberals. Schwartz sheds light on catastrophes like Katrina by framing them within a long and contentious history of human interaction with the natural world. Spanning more than five centuries and drawing on extensive archival research in Europe and the Americas, Sea of Storms emphasizes the continuing role of race, social inequality, and economic ideology in the shaping of our responses to natural disaster.

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Fiction has always been in a state of transformation and circulation: how does this history of mobility inform the emergence of the novel? The Spread of Novels explores the active movements of English and French fiction in the eighteenth century and argues that the new literary form of the novel was the result of a shift in translation. Demonstrating that translation was both the cause and means by which the novel attained success, Mary Helen McMurran shows how this period was a watershed in translation history, signaling the end of a premodern system of translation and the advent of modern literary exchange. McMurran illuminates aspects of prose fiction translation history, including the radical revision of fiction's origins from that of cross-cultural transfer to one rooted by nation; the contradictory pressures of the book trade, which relied on translators to energize the market, despite the increasing devaluation of their labor; and the dynamic role played by prose fiction translation in Anglo-French relations across the Channel and in the New World. McMurran examines French and British novels, as well as fiction that circulated in colonial North America, and she considers primary source materials by writers as varied as Frances Brooke, Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, and Francoise Graffigny. The Spread of Novels reassesses the novel's embodiment of modernity and individualism, discloses the novel's surprisingly unmodern characteristics, and recasts the genre's rise as part of a burgeoning vernacular cosmopolitanism.

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As is the case with so many musicians, the life of Warren Zevon was blessed with talent and opportunity yet also beset by tragedy and setbacks. Raised mostly by his mother with an occasional cameo from his gangster father, Warren had an affinity and talent for music at an early age. Taking to the piano and guitar almost instantly, he began imitating and soon creating songs at every opportunity. After an impromptu performance in the right place at the right time, a record deal landed on the lap of a teenager who was eager to set out on his own and make a name for himself. But of course, where fame is concerned, things are never quite so simple.Drawing on original interviews with those closest to Zevon, including Crystal Zevon, Jackson Browne, Mitch Albom, Danny Goldberg, Barney Hoskyns, and Merle Ginsberg, Nothing's Bad Luck tells the story of one of rock's greatest talents. Journalist C.M. Kushins not only examines Zevon's troubled personal life and sophisticated, ever-changing musical style, but emphasizes the moments in which the two are inseparable, and ultimately paints Zevon as a hot-headed, literary, compelling, musical genius worthy of the same tier as that of Bob Dylan and Neil Young.In Nothing's Bad Luck, Kushins at last gives Warren Zevon the serious, in-depth biographical treatment he deserves, making the life of this complex subject accessible to fans old and new for the very first time.

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Comics traffic in stereotypes, which can translate into real danger, as was the case when, in 2015, two Muslim gunmen opened fire at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, which had published depictions of Islam and Muhammad perceived by many to be blasphemous. As a response to that tragedy, Ken Koltun-Fromm calls for us to expand our moral imaginations through readings of graphic religious narratives.Utilizing a range of comic books and graphic novels, including R. Crumb’s Book of Genesis Illustrated, Craig Thompson’s Blankets, the Vakil brothers’ 40 Sufi Comics, and Ms. Marvel, Koltun-Fromm argues that representing religion in these formats is an ethical issue. By focusing on the representation of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu religious traditions, the comics discussed in this book bear witness to the ethical imagination, the possibilities of traversing religious landscapes, and the problematic status of racial, classed, and gendered characterizations of religious persons. Koltun-Fromm explores what religious stereotypes do and how they function in comics in ways that might expand or diminish our imaginative worlds. The pedagogical challenge, he argues, is to linger in that space and see those worlds well, with both ethical sensitivity and moral imagination.Accessibly written and vibrantly illustrated, this book sheds new light on the ways in which comic arts depict religious faith and culture. It will appeal to students and scholars of religion, literature, and comic studies.

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Air-Conditioning in Modern American Architecture, 1890–1970, documents how architects made environmental technologies into resources that helped shape their spatial and formal aesthetic. In doing so, it sheds important new light on the ways in which mechanical engineering has been assimilated into the culture of architecture as one facet of its broader modernist project.Tracing the development and architectural integration of air-conditioning from its origins in the late nineteenth century to the advent of the environmental movement in the early 1970s, Joseph M. Siry shows how the incorporation of mechanical systems into modernism’s discourse of functionality profoundly shaped the work of some of the movement’s leading architects, such as Dankmar Adler, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Gordon Bunshaft, and Louis Kahn. For them, the modernist ideal of functionality was incompletely realized if it did not wholly assimilate heating, cooling, ventilating, and artificial lighting. Bridging the history of technology and the history of architecture, Siry discusses air-conditioning’s technical and social history and provides case studies of buildings by the master architects who brought this technology into the conceptual and formal project of modernism.A monumental work by a renowned expert in American modernist architecture, this book asks us to see canonical modernist buildings through a mechanical engineering–oriented lens. It will be especially valuable to scholars and students of architecture, modernism, the history of technology, and American history.

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In this inventive mix of criticism, scholarship, and personal reflection, Carrie J. Preston explores the nature of cross-cultural teaching, learning, and performance. Throughout the twentieth century, Japanese noh was a major creative catalyst for American and European writers, dancers, and composers. The noh theater's stylized choreography, poetic chant, spectacular costumes and masks, and engagement with history inspired Western artists as they reimagined new approaches to tradition and form. In Learning to Kneel, Preston locates noh's important influence on such canonical figures as Pound, Yeats, Brecht, Britten, and Beckett. These writers learned about noh from an international cast of collaborators, and Preston traces the ways in which Japanese and Western artists influenced one another. Preston's critical work was profoundly shaped by her own training in noh performance technique under a professional actor in Tokyo, who taught her to kneel, bow, chant, and submit to the teachings of a conservative tradition. This encounter challenged Preston's assumptions about effective teaching, particularly her inclinations to emphasize Western ideas of innovation and subversion and to overlook the complex ranges of agency experienced by teachers and students. It also inspired new perspectives regarding the generative relationship between Western writers and Japanese performers. Pound, Yeats, Brecht, and others are often criticized for their orientalist tendencies and misappropriation of noh, but Preston's analysis and her journey reflect a more nuanced understanding of cultural exchange.

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Japan in the early seventeenth century was a wild place. Serial killers stalked the streets of Kyoto at night, while noblemen and women mingled freely at the imperial palace, drinking sake and watching kabuki dancing in the presence of the emperor's principal consort. Among these noblewomen was an imperial concubine named Nakanoin Nakako, who in 1609 became embroiled in a sex scandal involving both courtiers and young women in the emperor's service. As punishment, Nakako was banished to an island in the Pacific Ocean, but she never reached her destination. Instead, she was shipwrecked and spent fourteen years in a remote village on the Izu Peninsula before she was finally allowed to return to Kyoto. In 1641, Nakako began a new adventure: she entered a convent and became a Buddhist nun. Recounting the remarkable story of this resilient woman and her war-torn world, G. G. Rowley investigates aristocratic family archives, village storehouses, and the records of imperial convents. She follows the banished concubine as she endures rural exile, receives an unexpected reprieve, and rediscovers herself as the abbess of a nunnery. While unraveling Nakako's unusual tale, Rowley also reveals the little-known lives of samurai women who sacrificed themselves on the fringes of the great battles that brought an end to more than a century of civil war. Written with keen insight and genuine affection, An Imperial Concubine's Tale tells the true story of a woman's extraordinary life in seventeenth-century Japan.

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Nearly one in fifteen people-that's 20 million people in the United States-suffers from peripheral neuropathy, or nerve damage. Caused by such conditions as diabetes, cancer, vitamin deficiencies, and kidney disease as well as certain drugs and toxins, neuropathy brings numbness, tingling, and burning in the feet, legs, and fingertips. Neuropathy can be more than uncomfortable-it can be disabling: people whose fingertips are numb may find it hard to button clothing and complete other everyday tasks. Neuropathy is often dangerous, as well: people who cannot feel their feet are more likely to stumble and fall, and they may not notice injuries that need medical attention. Dr. Janice F. Wiesman, a neurologist with twenty years of experience helping people who have neuropathy find relief, shares her special insights into this painful and debilitating condition. With exceptional clarity, Dr. Wiesman begins by outlining the basics of nerve anatomy and function. She explains how peripheral neuropathy is diagnosed and treated, describes neuropathy's disparate causes, and offers readers lifestyle changes that can help keep nerves healthy. A useful glossary defines terms, patient stories offer real-world experiences, and illustrations provide a visual key to the condition. A detailed resources section points the reader to reliable web sites and organizations that offer more help. Concentrating on the most common types of neuropathy, Dr. Wiesman provides hope, help, and comfort to patients, families, and caregivers.

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‘The sky above our heads was uncaged and unlike us, free.’The Uncaged Sky is Kylie Moore-Gilbert’s remarkable story of courage and resilience, and a powerful meditation on hope, solidarity and what it means to be free.On 12 September 2018 British-Australian academic Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert was arrested at Tehran Airport by Iran’s feared Islamic Revolutionary Guards. Convicted of espionage in a shadowy trial presided over by Iran’s most notorious judge, she was given a 10 year sentence and ultimately spent 804 days incarcerated in Tehran’s Evin and Qarchak prisons.Held in a filthy solitary confinement cell for months, and subjected to relentless interrogation, Kylie was pushed to her limits by extreme physical and psychological deprivation. Her only lifeline was the covert friendships she made with other prisoners inside the maximum-security compound, communicating through the air vents between cells, and by hiding secret letters in the narrow outdoor balcony where she was led, blindfolded, for an hour each day.To survive, Kylie began to fight back. Multiple hunger strikes, co-ordinated protests and a daring escape attempt led to her transfer to the isolated desert prison, Qarchak, to live among dangerous convicted criminals. On 25 November 2020, after more than two years of struggle, Kylie was finally released in a high-stakes three-nation prisoner-swap deal, laying bare the complex game of global politics in which she had become a valuable pawn.

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Self-efficacy and self-compassion are psychological skills that form the basis for resilience, success, and overall quality of life, and as such understanding how best to implement these skills is essential for well-being. This volume includes six chapters that explore the concepts of self-efficacy and self-compassion from several perspectives. Chapter One investigates the predictive value of pre-academic self-efficacy for academic self-efficacy six months into the Danish teacher education program. Chapter Two provides a theoretical foundation for educator self-efficacy and current empirical evidence exploring self-efficacy of educators who are working in schools implementing tiered systems. Chapter Three examines reciprocal relations between academic self-efficacy and elements of achievement in math, with persistence as a mediator. Chapter Four synthesizes and examines research evidence on the relationship between parental self-compassion and parents' mental health, analyses the role of parental self-compassion in parenting practices, and investigates the effects of parents' self-compassion on children's outcomes. Chapter Five reviews recent findings concerning self-compassion from a trait/state perspective based on a development schema theory combined with a state of mind approach. Lastly, Chapter Six explores self-efficacy and its association with demographic characteristics in Greek families of university students with or without members with special educational needs and disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Forget every tactic you’ve ever tried to lose weight and feel better. Put down your weapons once and for all, and step out of the field of battle. Despite how it may seem, your brain and body are not unsupportive beasts bent on undermining your fitness goals. They just want some chips and dip, that’s all. They aren’t the problem. The way you’re trying to manipulate them is. In Lightness of Body and Mind: A Radical Approach to Weight and Wellness, personal trainer Sarah Hays Coomer offers a different approach. She proposes that you will never be able to achieve a body you love by doing things that you hate, that deprivation and limitation will never set you free, and that punishing workouts and strict diets are dead end roads. The way to a body that works is by doing more of what you authentically love. Through memoir and intimate client stories, this book encourages you to dance with your demons, to choose and cherish the ones you have no intention of giving up, and to build a solid infrastructure, dedicated to good health, in which wellness and indulgence spring from the same source. You don’t need more control. You just need functional knowledge of how habits are formed; a reverent, dizzy appreciation for falling apart when necessary; and laser focus on what brings you to life.

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The best way to defend the cause of human flourishing against this current onslaught of dangerous economic thinking is to relearn time-tested economic truths.The verdict is in: Free enterprise has lifted billions of people out of abject poverty all over the world and provided a higher quality of life than has ever been thought possible. But a growing case is forming in public opinion against free markets, and for a significantly larger command & control management of the economy. Whether you call it socialism or progressive leftism, more and more people are turning away from the forces of freedom and social cooperation that made the last two hundred years of prosperity possible, and embracing a system that deprives human beings of their dignity, impoverishing whole societies both financially and spiritually. What David Bahnsen does here is pull from the masters—the great economic voices of the past and the present—to remind readers of the basic economic truths that must serve as our foundation in understanding the challenges of today. In 250 vital points, he combines pearls of wisdom from economic legends with his own careful commentary to provide readers the perspective, information, and reaffirmation they need in order to see economics for what it is. It will empower you and equip you with the truth—250 truths—that are crucially needed to keep the lights on in civilization and advance the cause of human flourishing.

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'Deliciously dark American debut' – The GuardianA provocative, razor-sharp, and timely novel about a beloved English professor facing a slew of accusations against her husband from his former students – a situation that becomes more complicated when she herself develops an obsession of her own . . .When I was a child, I loved old men, and I could tell that they also loved me.And so we meet our deliciously incisive narrator: a popular English professor whose husband, a charismatic professor at the same small liberal arts college, is under investigation for his inappropriate relationships with his former students. The couple have long had a mutual understanding when it comes to their extramarital pursuits, but with these new allegations, life has become far less comfortable for them both.And when our unnamed narrator becomes increasingly infatuated with Vladimir, a celebrated, married young novelist who’s just arrived on campus, their tinder-box world comes dangerously close to exploding.Julia May Jonas takes us into charged territory, where the restrictions of morality bump up against the impulses of the human heart. Darkly funny and moving, Vladimir maps the personal and political minefield of our current moment, exposing the messy contradictions of power and desire.'This astonishing debut . . . I was utterly hooked . . . [by] this twisty, sexy, shocking treat of a novel . . . How on earth will Julia May Jonas better this?' – The Sunday Times

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Brings a new dimension to thinking about philosophical materialism and realism in the wake of phenomenology and deconstruction Challenges speculative realism's critique of contemporary Continental philosophy as correlationism Uses Merleau-Ponty and Nancy to develop an ontology that respects the materiality and exteriority of what exists without reinstating the mind world divide Shows how Merleau-Ponty and Nancy overcome the Cartesian presupposition at work in current realist appeal to step out of our own thoughts to reach the 'great outdoors' Provides an alternative to the phenomenological reduction of being to sense Defends anthropomorphism as a way of overcoming the Cartesian Sartrian ontology of the object Marie-Eve Morin proposes a reinterpretation of the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty and Nancy from the perspective of realist and object-oriented tendencies in contemporary philosophy. The realist critique of subject-centred anthropocentric thinking indicates the danger, inherent in the phenomenological approach, of reducing being to sense. Morin demonstrates how Merleau-Ponty and Nancy avoid this pitfall through the development of ontologies that respect the materiality and exteriority of what exists without reaffirming the Cartesian divide between mind and world. Morin orients her analysis around three ideas where Merleau-Ponty's and Nancy's thinking intersect: Body, Thing, Being. Each time, she tracks the role of difference or spacing within sensing and sense-making. She concludes that their respective conceptions as encroachment and promiscuity or as unpassable limit may provide counterweights to each other.

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This book exposes the dangerously imperfect forensic evidence that we rely on for criminal convictions."That's not my fingerprint, your honor," said the defendant, after FBI experts reported a "100-percent identification." The FBI was wrong. It is shocking how often they are. Autopsy of a Crime Lab is the first book to catalog the sources of error and the faulty science behind a range of well-known forensic evidence, from fingerprints and firearms to forensic algorithms. In this devastating forensic takedown, noted legal expert Brandon L. Garrett poses the questions that should be asked in courtrooms every day: Where are the studies that validate the basic premises of widely accepted techniques such as fingerprinting? How can experts testify with 100-percent certainty about a fingerprint, when there is no such thing as a 100 percent match? Where is the quality control at the crime scenes and in the laboratories? Should we so readily adopt powerful new technologies like facial recognition software and rapid DNA machines? And why have judges been so reluctant to consider the weaknesses of so many long-accepted methods?Taking us into the lives of the wrongfully convicted or nearly convicted, into crime labs rocked by scandal, and onto the front lines of promising reform efforts driven by professionals and researchers alike, Autopsy of a Crime Lab illustrates the persistence and perniciousness of shaky science and its well-meaning practitioners.

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Published for the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower’s landing, this ambitious new history of the Pilgrims and Plymouth Colony “will become the new standard work on the Plymouth Colony” (Thomas Kidd) “Informative, accessible, and compelling. . . . A welcome invitation to rediscover the Mayflower voyage and the founding of Plymouth Colony.”—Daniel M. Gullotta, Christianity Today“[An] excellent new history. . . . [Turner] asserts that the Pilgrims matter for more than their legend, and he deftly uses the history of Plymouth to explore ideas of liberty in the American colonies.”—Nathanael Blake, National Review In 1620, separatists from the Church of England set sail across the Atlantic aboard the Mayflower. Understanding themselves as spiritual pilgrims, they left to preserve their liberty to worship God in accordance with their understanding of the Bible. There exists, however, an alternative, more dispiriting version of their story. In it, the Pilgrims are religious zealots who persecuted dissenters and decimated Native peoples through warfare and by stealing their land. The Pilgrims’ definition of liberty was, in practice, very narrow. Drawing on original research using underutilized sources, John G. Turner moves beyond these familiar narratives in his sweeping and authoritative new history of Plymouth Colony. Instead of depicting the Pilgrims as otherworldly saints or extraordinary sinners, he tells how a variety of English settlers and Native peoples engaged in a contest for the meaning of American liberty.

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'A Certain Kind of Mistake' is one in a series of three novels by G M Hutchison, in which the central character in each of them has quite by chance, come face to face with the ramifications of some hugely significant global or national issue. Out of their depth in all this, they are being forced to think ‘outside the box’. BREXIT Foresaking Anna (page 203) describes a very dangerous situation that almost came to pass in the UK. COVID Am I Being Followed? (page 226) sees the origin and purpose of this pestilence through the eyes of a respectable religious fundamentalist. ANTI-SEMITISM A Certain Kind of Mistake (pages 11, 99, 310) mistakenly portrays a victim in the role of a predator Along with some of the most famous people in the land, G M Hutchison thinks very highly of his of his father’s ‘Uncle Bob’, the artist Robert Gemmell Hutchison, who found his calling early on in life to be later referred to as the ‘Scottish Israels’, no less. Unfortunately, G M Hutchison inherited absolutely none of his great uncle’s talent, and even more unfortunately, didn’t find his own particular calling as a ‘would-be’ novelist until he was about to lift his old age pension. Now a proud great-grandfather, six times over, G M Hutchison started school in Scotland just as the first bombs were being dropped in the 2nd World War. He clearly remembers a smouldering bombsite, right next to his home, in which a German landmine, during the previous night, had blown up a whole tenement building.

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*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE.* 'One of the greatest writers of our time' Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieThe Perfect Nine is a glorious epic about the founding of Kenya's Gikuyu people and the ideals of beauty, courage and unity.Gikuyu and Mumbi settled on the peaceful and bounteous foot of Mount Kenya after fleeing war and hunger. When ninety-nine suitors arrive on their land, seeking to marry their famously beautiful daughters, called The Perfect Nine, the parents ask their daughters to choose for themselves, but to choose wisely.First the young women must embark on a treacherous quest with the suitors, to find a magical cure for their youngest sister, Warigia, who cannot walk. As they journey up the mountain, the number of suitors diminishes and the sisters put their sharp minds and bold hearts to the test, conquering fear, doubt, hunger and many menacing ogres, as they attempt to return home. But it is perhaps Warigia's unexpected adventure that will be most challenging of all.Blending folklore, mythology and allegory, Ngugi wa Thiong'o chronicles the adventures of Gikuyu and Mumbi, and how their brave daughters became the matriarchs of the Gikuyu clans, in stunning verse, with all the epic elements of danger, humour and suspense.'A tremendous writer... it's hard to doubt the power of the written word when you hear the story of Ngugi wa Thiong'o' Guardian

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'Like all the best vintages Jack Lark has aged to perfection. Scarred, battered and bloody, his story continues to enthral' ANTHONY RICHESHistorical military fiction at its finest, for fans of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series, Matthew Harffy and Patrick O'Brian. South Africa, 1871. Jack Lark no longer walks alone. With the worldly Anna Baker by his side, he travels to the Cape Colony diamond fields determined to seek their fortune - and an adventurous new life together. The journey north soon turns violent as tensions erupt between other hopeful diggers and a gang of Boer men. Everyone has their eye on the same elusive prize - and some will stop at nothing to get it. For Jack and Anna, unearthing a diamond is only half the battle. Getting out of the mines alive will prove far more difficult - and dangerous. And when the worst happens, Jack finds himself tested as no enemy, no man and no war has ever before.Praise for the Jack Lark series:'Brilliant' Bernard Cornwell'Enthralling' The Times'Bullets fly, emotions run high and treachery abounds... exceptionally entertaining historical action adventure' Matthew Harffy'Expect ferocious, bloody action from the first page' Ben Kane'You feel and experience all the emotions and the blood, sweat and tears that Jack does... I devoured it in one sitting' Parmenion Books

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*Now a major TV series on Amazon Prime Video, starring Jenna Coleman*__________________________________________LOVE CAN HURT. BETRAYAL CAN KILL.Shattered by the discovery of her husband's affair, Liv knows they need to leave the chaos of New York to save their marriage. Maybe the road trip they'd always planned, exploring America's national parks - just the two of them - would help heal the wounds.But what Liv hasn't told her husband is that she has set him three challenges on their trip - three opportunities to prove he's really sorry.If he fails? Well, it's dangerous out there in the wilderness; accidents happen all the time. And if it's easy to die, then it's also easy to kill.__________________________________________What readers are saying about Wilderness . . .'Fast paced and totally twisted. THIS IS A MUST READ''A dark, addictive thriller everyone should read this summer''Absolutely gripping''Superb . . . tension that oozes off the pages as you read''A MUST READ!!!''I absolutely devoured it! Lots of twists to keep you on your toes!''Addictive''If you enjoyed Gone Girl, you'll love this''A terrific page-turner''I loved every little surprise, twist and reveal''Edge of the seat''A brilliant page-turner! Loved it''One of the best and most surprising endings I've read in quite a long time''I loved this book''A dark story of obsession, revenge and forgiveness!'

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