Jewish women were undeniably instrumental in shaping the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Yet historians and participants themselves have overlooked their contributions as Jews. This has left many vital questions unasked and unanswered—until now. Delving into archival sources and conducting extensive interviews with these fierce pioneers, Joyce Antler has at last broken the silence about the confluence of feminism and Jewish identity.Antler’s exhilarating new book features dozens of compelling biographical narratives that reveal the struggles and achievements of Jewish radical feminists in Chicago, New York and Boston, as well as those who participated in the later, self-consciously identified Jewish feminist movement that fought gender inequities in Jewish religious and secular life. Disproportionately represented in the movement, Jewish women’s liberationists helped to provide theories and models for radical action that were used throughout the United States and abroad. Their articles and books became classics of the movement and led to new initiatives in academia, politics, and grassroots organizing. Other Jewish-identified feminists brought the women’s movement to the Jewish mainstream and Jewish feminism to the Left. For many of these women, feminism in fact served as a “portal” into Judaism.Recovering this deeply hidden history, Jewish Radical Feminism places Jewish women’s activism at the center of feminist and Jewish narratives. The stories of over forty women’s liberationists and identified Jewish feminists—from Shulamith Firestone and Susan Brownmiller to Rabbis Laura Geller and Rebecca Alpert—illustrate how women’s liberation and Jewish feminism unfolded over the course of the lives of an extraordinary cohort of women, profoundly influencing the social, political, and religious revolutions of our era.

Painting a vivid, personal portrait of social and political upheaval in Oaxaca, Mexico, this unique memoir employs comics, bilingual essays, photos, and sketches to chronicle the events that unfolded around a teachers' strike and led to a seven-month siege. When award-winning cartoonist Peter Kuper and his wife and daughter moved to the beautiful, 15th-century colonial town of Oaxaca in 2006, they planned to spend a quiet year or two enjoying a different culture and taking a break from the U.S. political climate under the Bush administration. What they hadn't counted on was landing in the epicenter of Mexico's biggest political struggle in recent years. Timely and compelling, this extraordinary firsthand account presents a distinct artistic vision of Oaxacan life, from explorations of the beauty of the environment to graphic portrayals of the fight between strikers and government troops that left more than 20 people dead, including American journalist Brad Will.

Architect and social critic Michael Sorkin develops his own vision of the future lower Manhattan through a series of chronologically organized essays illustrated with full-color images of his own plans. Mixing his inimitable brand of social criticism with more personal reflections, Starting From Zero offers a striving challenge to the Ground Zero redevelopment plan recently chosen by New York's establishment insiders.

On the first morning of Rome's Covid-19 lockdown Matthew Kneale felt an urge to connect with friends and acquaintances and began writing an email, describing where he was, what was happening and what it felt like, and sent it to everyone he could think of. He was soon composing daily reports as he tried to comprehend a period of time, when everyone's lives suddenly changed and Italy struggled against an epidemic, that was so strange, so troubling and so fascinating that he found it impossible to think about anything else. Having lived in Rome for eighteen years, Matthew has grown to know the capital and its citizens well and this collection of brilliant diary pieces connects what he has learned about the city with this extraordinary, anxious moment, revealing the Romans through the intense prism of the coronavirus crisis.

In House of Hoppen , Kelly Hoppen, MBE takes a look back over her stellar career, which began when, as a sixteen-year-old full of drive and ideas, she was commissioned to design the kitchen of a family friend. Packed with previously unseen imagery and letters from Kelly's personal and professional archives, the book charts the course of her career and celebrates some of the many highlights. Fascinating insights into some of Kelly's favourite projects, including the most recent and some of her own homes, give an overview of the ways in which her design approach has both remained consistent and evolved over the decades. They also reveal the fundamental factors that Kelly believes make a home the comfortable, welcoming haven we need it to be. Key themes and design signatures that underpin her work are examined in detail and Kelly also showcases her 'classic' touches - such as her favourite chair designs, lights, wall treatments, cushion style and colour: taupe. House of Hoppen features a rich mix of imagery, from unseen archive material, including personal photographs and letters, to illustrations by contemporary artists, to interior photography by acclaimed photographers such as Tom Stewart, Bill Batten, Vincent Knapp, Mel Yates and Simon Upton.

Ever wonder why so many B actors wind up as A-grade politicians? Or how the casting couch worked? Acclaimed author Kathleen Sharp traces the influence of show business through the lives of its first power couple. Edie and Lew Wasserman built the world's largest talent agency, MCA, created the multibillion-dollar Universal Studios, and helped shape Washington, DC. Starting from MCA's birth in gangland Chicago, Lew represented stars such as Jimmy Stewart and Marilyn Monroe; pioneered TV with Leave It to Beaver and Miami Vice ; spawned the blockbuster movie model with Psycho and Jaws ; and developed a mega-theme park. His savvy wife, Edie, was the daughter of a mob attorney, the queen of A-list parties, and Lew's secret agent who boosted their status. Yet, the couple was attacked by rivals, federal prosecutors, and their own protégés. Even so, over the course of seven decades they managed to vanquish their enemies and parlay their influence far beyond Sunset Strip into governors' mansions, Senate chambers, and the White House. At the end, Edie and Lew became diplomats, kingmakers, and philanthropists, who elevated the fortunes of middle-class workers and California itself. Based on some four hundred interviews, this book features Janet Leigh, Clark Gable, Grace Kelly, John Belushi, Jean Stein, and Steven Spielberg along with the Kennedys, the Johnsons, the Reagans, and the Clintons. It's a fascinating read about how two kids from Cleveland created the largest entertainment conglomerate in the world and wound up ruling twentieth-century America.

"In 2012, Jonathan Littell went to the heart of the Syrian conflict, embedding himself with the Free Syria-Army in the historic city of Homs. He watched from the front line as the city was ruthlessly pummeled by Assad's forces before it finally surrendered. His urgent notebooks of what he saw on the ground speak directly of the horrors of the civil war that continues today. Out of the chaos, Littell bears witness to the lives and the hopes of freedom fighters. Syrian Notebooks is the most close-up account of the war, and will be seen as a classic account of war reportage"--

"Diplomacy is essential to the conduct of foreign policy and international business in the twenty-first century. Yet, few international actors are trained to understand or practice effective diplomacy. Poor diplomacy has contributed to repeated setbacks for the United States and other major powers in the last decade. Drawing on deep historical research, this book aims to 'reinvent' diplomacy for our current era. The original and comparative research provides a foundation for thinking about what successful outreach, negotiation, and relationship-building with foreign actors should look like. Instead of focusing only on failures, as most studies do, this one interrogates success. The book provides a framework for defining successful diplomacy and implementing it in diverse contexts. Chapters analyze the activities of diverse diplomats (including state and non-state actors) in enduring cases, including: post-WWII relief, the rise of the non-aligned movement, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the U.S. opening to China, the Camp David Accords, the reunification of Germany, the creation of the European Union, the completion of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and relief aid to pre-2001 Afghanistan. The cases are diverse and historical, but they are written with an eye toward contemporary challenges and opportunities. The book closes with systematic reflections on how current diplomats can improve their activities abroad. Foreign Policy Breakthroughs offers rigorous historical insights for present policy"--

"James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency, which sold approximately 36K copies, returns with a new book exploring the looming collapse of the techno-industrial economy, featuring profiles of individuals who have drastically altered their lives due to financial difficulties"--

Winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award 2010 A gripping story of a lone Jewish woman battling land sharks to keep her community alive Rachel lives alone by the sea. Her children have long migrated to Israel as have her Bene Israel Jew neighbours. Taking care of the local synagogue and preparing exquisite traditional Jewish dishes sustains Rachel's hope of seeing the community come together again at a future time. When developers make moves to acquire the synagogue and its surrounding land, Rachel's vehement opposition takes the synagogue committee and the town by surprise. Written with warmth and humour, Book of Rachel is a captivating tale of a woman's battle to live life on her own terms. Continuing the saga of the unique Bene Israel Jews in India, it adds to Esther David's reputation as a writer of grace and power.

"Albert Einstein's face is still one of the most recognizable in the world and he's widely considered to be the first modern-day celebrity. While many of his discoveries continue to define our daily lives, it's not just his genius that continues to shape our world. Today, more people know Einstein as an icon rather than a theorist-decades after his death, he's a celebrity with a massive online following. The Einstein Effect shows all the ways his influence is still with us today-in our systems and in our culture. Interspersed between chapters on his long-lasting scientific legacy, author Benyamin Cohen (the mind behind Einstein's Twitter account!) also tells the story of how Einstein became an unlikely social media figure and pop culture icon in the modern age"--

In this original investigative work, the bestselling authors of The Manchurian President expose one of the most important untold stories of the decade: how a nexus of radical socialist groups have seized political power, shaped Obama’s presidential agenda, and threaten the very future of our country. For decades, a radical socialist movement has been quietly infiltrating the major institutions of American power: our schools, our military, our economy, our media, and Congress itself. This progressive Red Army is an organized network consisting of numerous specialized groups that target specific policy areas while cooperating more broadly in a concerted decades-long campaign to transform America. Now, for the first time, investigative reporters Aaron Klein and Brenda J. Elliott not only expose the key players, organizations, and relationships in this radical network but chart their spheres of influence, their nefarious objectives, their role in shaping Barack Obama’s agenda, and their long-term plans for the nation. Among some of their finds, Klein and Elliott reveal the existence of a powerful “Marxist-socialist” bloc in Congress (explicitly formed as an arm of the Democratic Socialists of America) and examine its far-reaching goals in policy areas that affect all Americans, including the complete socialization of health care and comprehensive immigration reform, which seeks to change the very nature of the American electorate. The authors expose the shocking misinformation campaign behind Obama’s economic policies, discussing the crafting of the massive “stimulus” legislation, as well as his plans for future economic “reform.” In two chapters that every American must read, entirely new information is laid bare on the left’s unprecedented assault on our already over-liberalized education system. And in just one astonishing discovery, Klein and Elliott bring to light how federal stimulus money was used to fund an education group tied to radical educator (and unrepentant Pentagon bomber) Bill Ayers. The authors also expose the multipronged policy offensive aimed at disarming America by emboldening our enemies within and without, spurning traditional allies, subjecting us to the authority of foreign tribunals, and systematically dismantling the U.S. military. The authors also detail how elements of the news media not only collude with these radical groups, but are in some cases members of the very same extremist organizations they ought to be investigating. This radical network runs far deeper than the Obama administration and, if not stopped, will far outlast his presidency. From health care and manufacturing to immigration and environmental policy, Red Army documents how these radical groups are working to spread America’s wealth and transform the country into their vision of a socialist utopia.

"The Empire and the Five Kings is a cri de coeur that draws upon lessons from history and the eternal touchstones of human culture to reveal the stakes facing the West as America retreats from its leadership role, a process that did not begin with Donald Trump's presidency and is not likely to end with him. The crisis is one whose roots can be found as far back as antiquity and whose resolution will require the West to find a new way forward if its principles and values are to survive."--Jacket flap.

Now in its fourth installment, with a fifth in preparation, John Zorn's acclaimed Arcana series provides insight into the work and methodologies of some of the most creative musical minds of our time. Rather than an attempt to distill or define a musician's work, Arcana IV illuminates directly via personal vision and experience, through the undiluted words and thoughts of the practitioners themselves, elucidating through manifestos, scores, interviews, notes and critical papers, composer/performers address composing, improvising, teaching, living, touring and thinking in and through music. Essential for composers, musicians, students and fans alike, this challenging and original series has now become the major source on new music theory and practice in the twenty-first century. Among Arcana IV 's contributors are the late Derek Bailey, Nels Cline, Chris Cutler, Paul Dresher, Kenneth Gaburo, Shelley Hirsch, Wayne Horvitz, Vijay Iyer, Gordon Mumma, Matana Roberts, Katherine Supové and Carolyn Yarnell.

Argues that the failure of the United States to create successful peace settlements when ending the major wars of the twentieth century has only led to subsequent conflicts and new wars which attempt to resolve the issues of the previous war.

We need to talk about the family. For those who are lucky, families can be filled with love and care, but for many they are sites of pain: from abandonment and neglect, to abuse and violence. Nobody is more likely to harm you than your family. Even in so-called happy families, the unpaid, unacknowledged work that it takes to raise children and care for each other is endless and exhausting. It could be otherwise: in this urgent, incisive polemic, leading feminist critic Sophie Lewis makes the case for family abolition. Abolish the Family traces the history of family abolitionist demands, beginning with nineteenth century utopian socialist and sex radical Charles Fourier, the Communist Manifesto and early-twentieth century Russian family abolitionist Alexandra Kollontai. Turning her attention to the 1960s, Lewis reminds us of the anti-family politics of radical feminists like Shulamith Firestone and the gay liberationists, a tradition she traces to the queer Marxists bringing family abolition to the twenty-first century. This exhilarating essay looks at historic rightwing panic about Black families and the violent imposition of the family on indigenous communities, and insists: only by thinking beyond the family can we begin to imagine what might come after." --inside front cover flap

What sort of society could bind together Jacques Roubaud, Italo Calvino, Marcel Duchamp, and Raymond Queneau—and Daniel Levin Becker, a young American obsessed with language play? Only the Oulipo, the Paris-based experimental collective founded in 1960 and fated to become one of literature’s quirkiest movements. An international organization of writers, artists, and scientists who embrace formal and procedural constraints to achieve literature’s possibilities, the Oulipo (the French acronym stands for “workshop for potential literature”) is perhaps best known as the cradle of Georges Perec’s novel A Void, which does not contain the letter e. Drawn to the Oulipo’s mystique, Levin Becker secured a Fulbright grant to study the organization and traveled to Paris. He was eventually offered membership, becoming only the second American to be admitted to the group. From the perspective of a young initiate, the Oulipians and their projects are at once bizarre and utterly compelling. Levin Becker’s love for games, puzzles, and language play is infectious, calling to mind Elif Batuman’s delight in Russian literature in The Possessed. In recent years, the Oulipo has inspired the creation of numerous other collectives: the OuMuPo (a collective of DJs), the OuMaPo (marionette players), the OuBaPo (comic strip artists), the OuFlarfPo (poets who generate poetry with the aid of search engines), and a menagerie of other Ou-X-Pos (workshops for potential something ). Levin Becker discusses these and other intriguing developments in this history and personal appreciation of an iconic—and iconoclastic—group.

From celebrated public intellectual, New York Times bestselling author, and “America’s most famous professor” ( BookPage ) comes an urgent and sharply observed look at freedom of speech and the First Amendment offering a “ nonpartisan take on what it does and doesn’t protect and what kind of speech it should and shouldn’t regulate” ( Publishers Weekly ). How does the First Amendment really work? Is it a principle or a value? What is hate speech and should it always be banned? Are we free to declare our religious beliefs in the public square? What role, if any, should companies like Facebook play in policing the exchange of thoughts, ideas, and opinions? With clarity and power, Stanley Fish explores these complex questions in The First . From the rise of fake news, to the role of tech companies in monitoring content (including the President’s tweets), to Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling protest, First Amendment controversies continue to dominate the news cycle. Across America, college campus administrators are being forced to balance free speech against demands for safe spaces and trigger warnings. With “thoughtful, dense provocations that will require close attention” ( Kirkus Reviews ), Fish ultimately argues that freedom of speech is a double-edged concept; it frees us from constraints, but it also frees us to say and do terrible things. Urgent and controversial, The First is sure to ruffle feathers, spark dialogue, and shine new light on one of America’s most cherished—and debated—constitutional rights.

“An absolutely brilliant book . . . the most clearly argued critique yet of the Bush administration’s flawed approach to defeating jihadist terrorism.”—Peter Bergen, author of Holy War, Inc. Six years into the “war on terror,” are the United States and its allies safer than they were before it started? Sadly, we are not, and the reason is that we are fighting—and losing—the wrong war. In this paradigm-shifting book, Philip H. Gordon presents a new way of thinking about the war on terror and a new strategy for winning it. He draws a provocative parallel between the war on terror and the Cold War, showing how defense, development, diplomacy, and the determination to maintain our own values can again be deployed alongside military might to defeat a hostile and insidious ideology. Gordon also asks, “What would victory look like?”—a topic sorely missing from the debate today. He offers a positive vision of the world after the war on terror, which will end not when we kill or capture all potential terrorists but when their hateful ideology collapses. Gordon’s strategy for achieving this goal is achievable and realistic, but only if the United States changes course before it is too late.