"Elissa and Rita have forever struggled to find their place in each other's worlds. Rita, an overreaching, makeup-addicted, narcissistic Manhattan singer couldn't be more different from Elissa, her gay, taciturn New England writer daughter. Stuck in an outrageous maelstrom of codependency, mother and daughter cannot seem to extricate themselves from the center of each other's lives. Motherland is their universal story: a kaleidoscopic journey built on the ferocity of mother-daughter love, moral obligation, and the possibility and promise of healing. Having survived a harrowing childhood at the hands of her mother, Elissa is finally settled in Connecticut with her wife of almost twenty years. After much time, therapy, and wine, Elissa is at last in a healthy place, orbiting around her mother, but keeping far enough away from her to preserve the independent, quiet life she has built for herself. All of this is suddenly at risk when Rita, whose days are spent traversing the streets of Manhattan from Bergdorf's to Bloomingdale's and back again, suffers an incapacitating fall that leaves her fully dependent on her only child. Forced to confront her mother's desperate need for beauty, her view of the world through a medley of men, her lost days in the spotlight, addiction, and the money that has mysteriously disappeared in the name of maintaining her youth, Elissa must navigate the waters of their shared history, obligation, the problems of caregiving and age, and the frenetic, co-dependent love that has defined their obsessive relationship. Motherland asks the universal mother-daughter question: How much love is too much love?"--

The Iranian nuclear crisis has dominated world politics since the beginning of the century, with the country now facing increasing diplomatic isolation, talk of military strikes against its nuclear facilities and a disastrous Middle East war. What is Iran's nuclear programme all about? What is its genesis? There is little real understanding of Iran's nuclear programme, in particular its history, which is now over fifty years old. This ground-breaking book is unprecedented in its scope. It argues that the history of Iran's nuclear programme and the modern history of the country itself are irretrievably linked, and only by understanding one can we understand the other. From the programme's beginnings under the Shah of Iran, the book details the central role of the US in the birth of nuclear Iran, and, through the relationship between the programme's founder and the Shah of Iran himself, the role that nuclear weapons have played in the programme since the beginning. The author's unique access to 'the father' of Iran's nuclear programme, as well as to key scientific personnel under the early Islamic Republic and to senior Iranian and Western officials at the centre of today's negotiations, sheds new light on the uranium enrichment programme that lies at the heart of global concerns. What emerges is a programme that has, for a variety of reasons, a deep resonance to Iran. This is why it has persisted with it for over half a century in the face of such widespread opposition. Drawing on years of research across the world, David Patrikarakos has produced the most comprehensive examination of Iran's nuclear programme - in all its forms to date.

In the 150 years since its humble birth, baseball has shown an infinite capacity for exhilarating triumphs, heart-breaking losses, amusing blunders, and awe-inspiring feats. Willie Mays's amazing catch of Vic Wertz's monstrous drive in the 1954 World Series, Bobby Thomson's "shot heard round the world," the "Black Sox" Scandal of 1919, DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak, even the pitiful 1962 Mets, who finished 60 games (or two full months) out of first place--these are all part of baseball lore and part of its allure. A banquet for baseball fans, Baseball Anecdotes offers a colorful and highly entertaining anecdotal history of America's National Pastime, from the founding of the first professional baseball team, Cincinnati's Red Stockings, by George Wright (the son of a famous English cricketer) and the forming of the first league (in a New York bar on St. Patrick's Day), to the miraculous comeback of the Mets in the Sixth Game of the 1986 World Series. Here you will meet the game's great innovators (from John Montgomery Ward, who invented the pitching mound--and also pitched the second perfect game in history--to Bill Veeck, who introduced the exploding scoreboard in Comiskey Park); the colorful eccentrics (such as King Kelly, who was accompanied off the field by a black monkey and a Japanese valet) and the self-effacing stars (such as Harmon Killebrew, who, when asked what his hobbies were, said, "Well, I like to wash dishes"); the penny-pinching owners (when Babe Ruth requested tickets for the Yankee's 1936 season opener at The House That Ruth Built, the team management said sure, just send in a check); and, most of all, the legendary players: Ruth, Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Lefty Gomez, Sandy Koufax, Casey Stengel, Mickey Mantle, and countless others. Along the way, readers are treated to instant replays of some of baseball's most memorable moments, such as Roger Maris' quest for Ruth's 61-home-run record, Don Larsen's perfect World Series game, and Ted Williams' final major league at bat (he hit a home run). Okrent and Wulf, two highly regarded baseball writers, touch all the bases in this vividly written volume, capturing the whole human drama of baseball in a cascade of stories that offers a nostalgic feast (or, as Yogi Berra would put it, "Deja vu all over again") as well as a fascinating introduction to baseball lore for the newest generation of fans.

The Faber Classic Screenplay Series presents the very best writing from the history of cinema. Sweet Smell of Success is the smartest, most cynical American film of the 1950s. Written by Ernest Lehman ( North by Northwest , The Sound of Music ) and the celebrated leftist playwright Clifford Odets, it is a vicious dissection of the world of public relations and journalism which conjures up a wprld of creeping hysteria and acid disenchantment. Tony Curtis playing the Scuttling press agent Sidney Falco, and Burt Lancaster as the colimnist J.J. Hunsecker, gave the performances of their careers. With a specially commissioned introduction by Lehman, and an appreciation of the film's director, Alexander Mackendrick, by James Mangold. The Faber Classic Screenplay Series presents the very best writing from the history of cinema. Sweet Smell of Success is the smartest, most cynical American film of the 1950s. Written by Ernest Lehman ( North by Northwest , The Sound of Music ) and the celebrated leftist playwright Clifford Odets, it is a vicious dissection of the world of public relations and journalism which conjures up a wprld of creeping hysteria and acid disenchantment. Tony Curtis playing the Scuttling press agent Sidney Falco, and Burt Lancaster as the colimnist J.J. Hunsecker, gave the performances of their careers. With a specially commissioned introduction by Lehman, and an appreciation of the film's director, Alexander Mackendrick, by James Mangold.

"Soccer is the world's favorite pastime, a passion for billions around the globe. In the United States, however, the sport is a distant also-ran behind football, baseball, basketball, and hockey. Why is America an exception? And why, despite America's leading role in popular culture, does most of the world ignore American sports in return? Offside is the first book to explain these peculiarities, taking us on a thoughtful and engaging tour of America's sports culture and connecting it with other fundamental American exceptionalisms. In so doing, it offers a comparative analysis of sports cultures in the industrial societies of North America and Europe. The authors argue that when sports culture developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, nativism and nationalism were shaping a distinctly American self-image that clashed with the non-American sport of soccer. Baseball and football crowded out the game. Then poor leadership, among other factors, prevented soccer from competing with basketball and hockey as they grew. By the 1920s, the United States was contentedly isolated from what was fast becoming an international obsession. The book compares soccer's American history to that of the major sports that did catch on. It covers recent developments, including the hoopla surrounding the 1994 soccer World Cup in America, the creation of yet another professional soccer league, and American women's global preeminence in the sport. It concludes by considering the impact of soccer's growing popularity as a recreation, and what the future of sports culture in the country might say about U.S. exceptionalism in general." http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/prin021/00061115.html

“It gives me a secret pleasure to observe the fair character our family has in the place by Jews & Christians,“Abigail Levy Franks wrote to her son from New York City in 1733. Abigail was part of a tiny community of Jews living in the new world. In the centuries that followed, as that community swelled to several millions, women came to occupy diverse and changing roles. American Jewish Women’s History , an anthology covering colonial times to the present, illuminates that historical diversity. It shows women shaping Judaism and their American Jewish communities as they engaged in volunteer activities and political crusades, battled stereotypes, and constructed relationships with their Christian neighbors. It ranges from Rebecca Gratz’s development of the Jewish Sunday School in Philadelphia in 1838 to protest the rising prices of kosher meat at the turn of the century, to the shaping of southern Jewish women's cultural identity through food. There is currently no other reader conveying the breadth of the historical experiences of American Jewish women available. The reader is divided into four sections complete with detailed introductions. The contributors include: Joyce Antler, Joan Jacobs Brumberg, Alice Kessler-Harris, Paula E. Hyman, Riv-Ellen Prell, and Jonathan D. Sarna.

In this rousing, persuasive, and hugely entertaining book, John Podhoretz says that George W. Bush has earned a place in the pantheon of great American chief executives---and shows in one amazing detail after another how Bush's success has driven some of his critics into a pathological frenzy. Podhoretz is the first to acknowledge that the odds were stacked against Dubya, the inexperienced Texas governor who took up residence in the White House lacking an electoral majority, dogged by widely publicized verbal mishaps, and widely viewed by the American elite as a lightweight. But to the delight of his friends and the teeth-gnashing frustration of liberals, George W. Bush has proven himself an immensely effective president. Throughout his three years in the White House, as Podhoretz explains, Dubya has outsmarted, out-maneuvered, out-articulated, and outshone adversaries and critics. Steeled by the tragedy of September 11, the new president took a nation more obsessed with reality television than with the reality of international terrorism and girded it for the long struggle that lay ahead. He has presided over two major military campaigns to stunning success, initiated tax cuts whose dimensions have awed critics and fans alike, and brought his party into the twenty-first century. He has been resourceful, disciplined, and independent-minded---so much so that he was able to reject his own father's governing style as president to find his own voice and his own place in history. Bush hasn't hoarded his political capital, but has used it in bold and unexpected ways. Instead of bowing to conventional wisdom and carving out a centrist position, he has remained true to his ideological roots. Instead of deferring to established Beltway thinking, he has done what he thinks is best for America and the world. As Bush has grown more presidential, the criticisms of him have grown more intense---and, in Podhoretz's view, crazier and crazier. In a series of short chapters, Podhoretz takes a rhetorical scalpel to eight of the wildest caricatures of Bush and leaves them in hilarious shreds. In a season of broadsides being fired from both sides of the aisle, here is a book that distinguishes itself by the force of its arguments and the ringing clarity of its thought. Impassioned, insightful, and convincing, Bush Country is an analysis of a presidency gone right and a celebration of a 0man who has already earned his place in history.

"In May of 1945, German forces surrendered to the Allied powers, effectively putting an end to World War II in Europe. But the aftershocks of this global military conflict did not cease with the signing of truces and peace treaties. Millions of lost and homeless POWs, slave laborers, political prisoners, and concentration camp survivors overwhelmed Germany, a country in complete disarray. British and American soldiers gathered the malnourished and desperate foreigners, and attempted to repatriate them to Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and the USSR. But after exhaustive efforts, there remained over a million displaced persons who either refused to go home or, in the case of many, had no home to which to return. They would spend the next three to five years in displaced persons camps, divided by nationalities, temporary homelands in exile, with their own police forces, churches, schools, newspapers, and medical facilities. The international community couldn't agree on the fate of the Last Million, and after a year of fruitless debate and inaction, an International Refugee Organization was created to resettle them in lands suffering from labor shortages. But no nations were willing to accept the 200,000 to 250,000 Jewish men, women, and children who remained trapped in Germany. In 1948, the United States, among the last countries to accept anyone for resettlement, finally passed a Displaced Persons Bill - but as Cold War fears supplanted memories of WWII atrocities, the bill only granted visas to those who were reliably anti-communist, including thousands of former Nazi collaborators, Waffen-SS members, and war criminals, while barring the Jews who were suspected of being Communist sympathizers or agents because they had been recent residents of Soviet-dominated Poland. Only after the passage of the controversial UN resolution for the partition of Palestine and Israel's declaration of independence were the remaining Jewish survivors finally able to leave their displaced persons camps in Germany."--

"In May of 1945, German forces surrendered to the Allied powers, effectively putting an end to World War II in Europe. But the aftershocks of this global military conflict did not cease with the signing of truces and peace treaties. Millions of lost and homeless POWs, slave laborers, political prisoners, and concentration camp survivors overwhelmed Germany, a country in complete disarray. British and American soldiers gathered the malnourished and desperate foreigners, and attempted to repatriate them to Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and the USSR. But after exhaustive efforts, there remained over a million displaced persons who either refused to go home or, in the case of many, had no home to which to return. They would spend the next three to five years in displaced persons camps, divided by nationalities, temporary homelands in exile, with their own police forces, churches, schools, newspapers, and medical facilities. The international community couldn't agree on the fate of the Last Million, and after a year of fruitless debate and inaction, an International Refugee Organization was created to resettle them in lands suffering from labor shortages. But no nations were willing to accept the 200,000 to 250,000 Jewish men, women, and children who remained trapped in Germany. In 1948, the United States, among the last countries to accept anyone for resettlement, finally passed a Displaced Persons Bill - but as Cold War fears supplanted memories of WWII atrocities, the bill only granted visas to those who were reliably anti-communist, including thousands of former Nazi collaborators, Waffen-SS members, and war criminals, while barring the Jews who were suspected of being Communist sympathizers or agents because they had been recent residents of Soviet-dominated Poland. Only after the passage of the controversial UN resolution for the partition of Palestine and Israel's declaration of independence were the remaining Jewish survivors finally able to leave their displaced persons camps in Germany."--

Following on from Noam Chomsky's bestselling September 11 , this hard-hitting book presents the most up-to-date thinking on war, terrorism and the new global order by one of America's most articulate historians and a high profile defender of civil rights.

Publisher's description: Robert Rubin was sworn in as the seventieth U.S. Secretary of the Treasury in January 1995 in a brisk ceremony attended only by his wife and a few colleagues. As soon as the ceremony was over, he began an emergency meeting with President Bill Clinton on the financial crisis in Mexico. This was not only a harbinger of things to come during what would prove to be a rocky period in the global economy; it also captured the essence of Rubin himself--short on formality, quick to get into the nitty-gritty. From his early years in the storied arbitrage department at Goldman Sachs to his current position as chairman of the executive committee of Citigroup, Robert Rubin has been a major figure at the center of the American financial system. He was a key player in the longest economic expansion in U.S. history.

"A brilliant and visionary argument for America's role as the defender of peace and order throughout the world--and what is likely to happen if we abandon our long-term commitments. Recent years have brought deeply disturbing developments around the globe. American sentiment seems to be leaning increasingly toward going it alone or withdrawing in the face of such disarray. In this powerful, urgent essay, Robert Kagan elucidates the reasons that American withdrawal or a selfish unilateralism would be the worst possible response, based on a fundamental and dangerous misreading of the world. Like a jungle that keeps growing back after being cut down, the world has always been full of dangerous actors who, left unchecked, possess the desire and ability to make things worse. Kagan makes clear how the "realist" impulse to recognize our limitations and focus on our failures misunderstands the essential role America has played for decades in keeping the world's worst instability in check. A true realism, he argues, means understanding that the historical norm has always been toward chaos--that the jungle will grow back, if we let it"--

INCLUDES DOWNLOADABLE ORIGINAL AUDIO INTERVIEWS WITH THE AUTHOR AND THE BEATLES IN 1964 In 1964-1965, Larry Kane was the only American reporter, broadcast or newspaper, to travel with the Fab Four on every stop of their North American tour. In Ticket to Ride , Kane tells the story of what it was like to literally live with the four young men who would leave an indelible mark on contemporary music. Weaving in the voices of the Beatles themselves and covering the electrifying action of the road-the performances, the mischief, and all the players who cropped up along the way during those key years that catapulted the Beatles to major success – Ticket to Ride is unlike any other book on the Beatles. The story is told from the perspective of a seasoned journalist, who at the time of the tour was just coming into his own in a nation that was bracing for the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, and a radical shift in rock-and-roll music. Twenty-one and eager to cover “big news ” Kane unknowingly was in the process of covering one of the biggest music events in history. Ticket to Ride is an inside account of these exciting years during the career of the band that redefined rock and roll. A must-have for Beatles fans, this paperback edition includes a foreword by the legendary Dick Clark, a CD of bonus interview material, rare photographs, and an appendix detailing tour schedules.

"With vivid storytelling and access to insider accounts, Weiner sets out to trace the roots of Russian-American political warfare--conflict waged without weapons--over the last seven decades to understand how a president landed in the White House with the help of an expansive, covert Russian campaign. Russia's modern revival of Soviet-era intelligence operations constitutes one of the most significant threats to democracy in the United States and around the world, and yet the US has not engaged its own political warfare methods in defense, even as our own justice department has concluded unequivocally that Russia influenced the 2016 election. To get to the heart of what's at stake and find potential solutions, Weiner examines long-running twentieth century CIA operations, political machinations by the Soviet KGB around the world, the erosion of American political warfare after the Cold War, and why twenty-first century Russia has returned to the practice while the US has not. Weiner takes us behind closed doors and into the deliberation rooms of past and present Russian and American intelligence operations that directly led to-and help illuminate-the current administration and the future of American democracy"--

Pulitzer Prize-winning economics journalist Steven Pearlstein argues that our thirty year experiment in unfettered markets has undermined core values required to make capitalism and democracy work. Thirty years ago, 'greed is good' and 'maximizing shareholder value' became the new mantras woven into the fabric of our business culture, economy, and politics. Although, around the world, free market capitalism has lifted more than a billion people from poverty, in the United States most of the benefits of economic growth have been captured by the richest 10%, along with providing justification for squeezing workers, cheating customers, avoiding taxes, and leaving communities in the lurch. As a result, Americans are losing faith that a free market economy is the best system. In Can American Capitalism Survive', Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steven Pearlstein chronicles our descent and challenges the theories being taught in business schools and exercised in boardrooms around the country. We're missing a key tenet of Adam Smith's wealth of nations: without trust and social capital, democratic capitalism cannot survive. Further, equality of incomes and opportunity need not come at the expense of economic growth. Pearlstein lays out bold steps we can take as a country: a guaranteed minimum income paired with universal national service, tax incentives for companies to share profits with workers, ending class segregation in public education, and restoring competition to markets. He provides a path forward that will create the shared prosperity that will sustain capitalism over the long term ; Thirty years ago, 'greed is good' and 'maximizing shareholder value' became the new mantras woven into the fabric of our business culture, economy, and politics. Pearlstein argues that our thirty year experiment in unfettered markets has undermined core values required to make capitalism and democracy work. He challenges the theories being taught in business schools and in boardrooms, believing that we're missing a key tenet of Adam Smith's wealth of nations: without trust and social capital, democratic capitalism cannot survive. -- adapted from jacket

A surprising, enlightening series of conversations that shed new light on the music and career of "our greatest living composer" (New York Times) Steve Reich is a living legend in the world of contemporary classical music. As a leader of the minimalist movement in the 1960s, his works have become central to the musical landscape worldwide, influencing generations of younger musicians, choreographers and visual artists. He has explored non-Western music and American vernacular music from jazz to rock, as well as groundbreaking music and video pieces. He toured the world with his own ensemble and his compositions are performed internationally by major orchestras and ensembles. Now Reich sits down with past collaborators, fellow composers and musicians as well as visual artists influenced by his work to reflect on his prolific career as a composer as well as the music that inspired him and that has been inspired by him, including: David Lang Brian Eno Richard Serra Michael Gordon Michael Tilson Thomas Russell Hartenberger Robert Hurwitz Stephen Sondheim Jonny Greenwood David Harrington Elizabeth Lim-Dutton David Robertson Micaela Haslam Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker Julia Wolfe Nico Muhly Beryl Korot Colin Currie Brad Lubman

First time in paperback, with a new Introduction and final chapter World affairs expert and intrepid travel journalist Robert D. Kaplan braved the dangers of war-ravaged Afghanistan in the 1980s, living among the mujahidin—the “soldiers of god”—whose unwavering devotion to Islam fueled their mission to oust the formidable Soviet invaders. In Soldiers of God we follow Kaplan’s extraordinary journey and learn how the thwarted Soviet invasion gave rise to the ruthless Taliban and the defining international conflagration of the twenty-first century. Kaplan returns a decade later and brings to life a lawless frontier. What he reveals is astonishing: teeming refugee camps on the deeply contentious Pakistan-Afghanistan border; a war front that combines primitive fighters with the most technologically advanced weapons known to man; rigorous Islamic indoctrination academies; a land of minefields plagued by drought, fierce tribalism, insurmountable ethnic and religious divisions, an abysmal literacy rate, and legions of war orphans who seek stability in military brotherhood. Traveling alongside Islamic guerrilla fighters, sharing their food, observing their piety in the face of deprivation, and witnessing their determination, Kaplan offers a unique opportunity to increase our understanding of a people and a country that are at the center of world events.

In 1950's Brooklyn, sisters Rose and Pearl Weiss grow up in a loving but strict ultra-Orthodox Jewish family, never dreaming of defying their parents or their community's unbending and intrusive demands. Then, a chance meeting with a young French immigrant turns Rose's world upside down, its once bearable strictures suddenly tightening like a noose around her neck. Defiantly, she begins to live a secret life that shocks her family when it is discovered. Out of guilt and an overwhelming desire to be reconciled with those she loves, she finally bows to her parents' demands that she agree to an arranged marriage. But the night before her wedding, she commits an act of defiance so unforgivable it will exile her forever from her innocent young sister, her family, and all she has ever known. Forty years later, pious Pearl's sheltered young daughter Rivka suddenly discovers the truth about the family outcast, her Aunt Rose, now a successful photographer. Inspired, but na℗♭.ve and reckless, she sets off on a dangerous adventure that will stir up the ghosts of the past and alter the future in unimaginable ways for all involved.

"Young Lions: How Jewish Authors Reinvented the American War Novel shows how Jews, traditionally castigated as weak and cowardly, for the first time became the popular literary representatives of what it meant to be a soldier and what it meant to be an American. Revisiting best-selling works ranging from Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead to Joseph Heller's Catch-22, and uncovering a range of unknown archival material, Leah Garrett shows how Jewish writers used the theme of World War II to reshape the American public's ideas about war, the Holocaust, and the role of Jews in postwar life. In contrast to most previous war fiction these new Jewish war novels were often ironic, funny, and irreverent and sought to teach the reading public broader lessons about liberalism, masculinity, and pluralism"--Page 4 of cover.

"As an orphaned survivor and witness to the horrors of Auschwitz, Elie Wiesel (1928-2016) compelled the world to confront the Holocaust with his searing memoir Night. How did this soft-spoken man from a small Carpathian town become such an influential figure on the world stage. Drawing on Wiesel's prodigious literary output and interviews with his family, friends, scholars, and critics, Joseph Berger seeks to answer this question."--