WouldYou Believe. . . When the Helsinki Accords were signed on August 1, 1975, thelikelihood they would have a profound and lasting impact on the world were verysmall. Which is why a book about them after a half century is both surprisinglytopical and well worth reading for anyone with an interest in modern history. Thethirty-five signatories were the nations of Europe, the United States andCanada at was formally known as the Conference of Security and Cooperation inEurope. The Final Act of CSCE contained detailed provisions on respect forhuman rights and set country borders that essentially held until Russia invadedUkraine in February,2022. Only15 years after the summit signing, the Soviet Union imploded and its EasternEuropean satellites broke with Communism and the broad range of human rightsissues -civil, social, economic, and political - were a major factor in thishistoric turning point. PeterL.W. Osnos' expertise on the history of the accords is vast, as a journalistand publisher. His narrative writing skill is widely recognized. Holly Cartner provides a vivid account of howa small organization called Helsinki Watch became Human Rights Watch, the most importantglobal NGO in its field.

In more than five decades as a reporter, editor and publisher, Peter Osnos has had an especially good view of momentous events and relationships with some of the most influential personalities of our time. As a young journalist for I.F. Stone's Weekly, one of the leading publications of the turbulent 1960s and in 18 years at The Washington Post , he covered the war in Vietnam and Cambodia, the Soviet Union at the height of Kremlin power, Washington D.C. as National Editor, "Swinging London" in the 60s and Thatcher's Britain in the 1980s. At Random House and the company he founded, PublicAffairs, he was responsible for books by four presidents -Carter, Clinton, Obama and Trump; celebrated Washington figures including Robert McNamara, House Speaker Tip O'Neill and Vernon Jordan, first ladies Rosalynn Carter and Nancy Reagan, the billionaire George Soros, basketball superstars Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Magic Johnson, legendary spies, political dissidents and the writers, Molly Ivins and Peggy Noonan, among many others. In this unusually wide-ranging memoir, Osnos uses a reporter's skills to portray historic events and encounters beginning with his parents' extraordinary World War II experiences escaping Europe to India, where he was born, to the present day. He shares unique portraits of the famous people he worked with and an insider's perspective of the news and publishing businesses. As he charts the evolution of his career and recent history, he also explores the influence and impact of family, character, curiosity, luck, resilience, a well-pressed suit and some unexpected wrinkles. Also featuring a "virtual attic" of photographs, documents and video at anespeciallygoodview.com.

Originally published in 1986, From Berlin to Berkeley is an intellectual portrait of one of America's leading 20th century social scientists, Reinhard Bendix, and his father, Ludwig Bendix. It discusses cultural identity and assimilation and provides a profound account of Ludwig Bendix's life as a lawyer and critic of the German judicial system, his identification with German culture and his emigration to Palestine during Hitler's regime. Bendix then examines the relationship with his father and details his youth in Germany, his emigration to America, and his early career as a scholar. Covering the period from 1877 to the 1980s, Bendix shows how the two lives were touched by the culture of Imperial Germany, the German legal profession, World War I, the revolution of November 1918 in Germany and subsequent inflation, the Great Depression of the 1930s and the crisis of the Weimar Republic, the Hitler regime, emigration to Palestine and the United States, World War II, the division of Germany, and the world-political role of the United States. A moving exploration which melds sociological case study and family history, the book is a significant measure of a family and a civilization.

Here the late Raphael Patai (1910-1996) recreates the fascinating world of Jewish seafaring from Noah's voyage through the Diaspora of late antiquity. In a work of pioneering scholarship, Patai weaves together Biblical stories, Talmudic lore, and Midrash literature to bring alive the world of these ancient mariners. As he did in his highly acclaimed book The Jewish Alchemists, Patai explores a subject that has never before been investigated by scholars. Based on nearly sixty years of research, beginning with study he undertook for his doctoral dissertation, The Children of Noah is literally Patai's first book and his last. It is a work of unsurpassed scholarship, but it is accessible to general readers as well as scholars.An abundance of evidence demonstrates the importance of the sea in the lives of Jews throughout early recorded history. Jews built ships, sailed them, fought wars in them, battled storms in them, and lost their lives to the sea. Patai begins with the story of the deluge that is found in Genesis and profiles Noah, the father of all shipbuilders and seafarers. The sea, according to Patai's interpretation, can be seen as an image of the manifestation of God's power, and he reflects on its role in legends and tales of early times. The practical importance of the sea also led to the development of practical institutions, and Patai shows how Jewish seafaring had its own culture and how it influenced the cultures of Mediterranean life as well. Of course, Jewish sailors were subject to the same rabbinical laws as Jews who never set sail, and Patai describes how they went to extreme lengths to remain in adherence, even getting special emendations of laws to allow them to tie knots and adjust rigging on the Sabbath.The Children of Noah is a capstone to an extraordinary career. Patai was both a careful scholar and a gifted storyteller, and this work is at once a vivid history of a neglected aspect of Jewish culture and a treasure trove of sources for further study. It is a stimulating and delightful book.

Virtually undeveloped one hundred years ago, Israel, the promised "land of milk and honey," is in ecological disarray. In this gripping book, Alon Tal provides--for the first time ever--a history of environmentalism in Israel, interviewing hundreds of experts and activists who have made it their mission to keep the country's remarkable development sustainable amid a century of political and cultural turmoil.The modern Zionist vision began as a quest to redeem a land that bore the cumulative effects of two thousand years of foreign domination and neglect. Since then, Israel has suffered from its success. A tenfold increase in population and standard of living has polluted the air. The deserts have bloomed but groundwater has become contaminated. Urban sprawl threatens to pave over much of the country's breathtaking landscape. Yet there is hope. Tal's account considers the ecological and tactical lessons that emerge from dozens of cases of environmental mishaps, from habitat loss to river reclamation. Pollution in a Promised Land argues that the priorities and strategies of Israeli environmental advocates must address issues beyond traditional green agendas.

Braunthal, Julius

In the highly charged atmosphere of the Cold War, the 1954 defection of Soviet diplomats Vladimir and Evdokia Petrov detonated under Australian politics like a nuclear explosion. From the moment the famous photo of Soviet thugs manhandling Evdokia Petrova across the Mascot tarmac hit the newstands, the case was a popular sensation. By the time ALP leader Doc Evatt had initiated his spectacular political self-destruction before the subsequent royal commission and triggered the events that led to the ALP's electoral obliteration in the 1950s and '60s, its place in history was assured.

Experience the excitement, beauty and mystery of a journey to Syria and Palestine in 1843 as vividly documented in the notes of Ridley H. Herschell in 'A Visit to My Father-Land.' This fascinating travelogue charts his journey through the Holy Land, describing its landscapes, people, and history, and providing a fascinating insight into the cultures and customs of the region. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in travel, history, and the Middle East. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Experience the excitement, beauty and mystery of a journey to Syria and Palestine in 1843 as vividly documented in the notes of Ridley H. Herschell in 'A Visit to My Father-Land.' This fascinating travelogue charts his journey through the Holy Land, describing its landscapes, people, and history, and providing a fascinating insight into the cultures and customs of the region. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in travel, history, and the Middle East. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The extraordinary, true story of a Jewish school community in evacuation during World War II, from 1939 until 1945. When the gentile Sheffordians welcomed in the Jewish schoolchildren, they were in for an enormous surprise, but their puzzlement and resentment was quickly overcome and the next six years were memorable ones. This is a fascinating story of triumph and faith in the face of hardship and challenge. Written by the head of London's Jewish Secondary School, who oversaw the evacuation and education of five hundred Jewish schoolchildren in the tiny village of Shefford, England, this heartwarming and inspiring book includes childhood impressions of Shefford, letters, reports, and addresses.

In Cambodia: Report from a Stricken Land, former Southeast Asia correspondent for the New York Times and Pulitzer Prize winner Henry Kamm gives a clear and definitive history of contemporary Cambodia from 1970 to the present. For more than thirty years, Kamm's high-level political and military connections allowed him unparalleled access to the leaders who shaped Cambodia into what it is today. Bringing to this work a unique expertise on Southeast Asia, he provides a poignant but clear-eyed portrait of a people and a beleaguered and complex country. For the first time, Kamm offers Western readers a much-needed analysis and understanding of those thirty turbulent years of revolution, invasion, coups d'etat, and genocide.

The Birth of Civilization in the Near East, is many of the old books which have been considered important throughout the human history. They are now extremely scarce and very expensive antique. So that this work is never forgotten we republish these books in high quality, using the original text and artwork so that they can be preserved for the present and future generations. This whole book has been reformatted, retyped and designed. These books are not made of scanned copies of their original work and hence the text is clear and readable.

In Journey Through a Small Planet (1972), the writer Emanuel Litvinoff recalls his working-class Jewish childhood in the East End of London: a small cluster of streets right next to the city, but worlds apart in culture and spirit. With vivid intensity Litvinoff describes the overcrowded tenements of Brick Lane and Whitechapel, the smell of pickled herring and onion bread, the rattle of sewing machines and chatter in Yiddish. He also relates stories of his parents, who fled from Russia in 1914, his experiences at school and a brief flirtation with Communism. Unsentimental, vital and almost dream like, this is a masterly evocation of a long-vanished world.

From the divine right of kings to the political philosophies of writers such as Machiavelli, the medieval city-states to the unification of Spain, Daniel Waley and Peter Denley focus on the growing power of the state to illuminate changing political ideas in Europe between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. Spanning the entire continent and beyond, and using contemporary voices wherever possible, the authors include substantial sections on economics, religion, and art, and how developments in these areas fed into and were influenced by the transformation of political thinking. The new edition takes the narrative beyond the confines of western Europe with chapters on East Central Europe and the teutonic knights, and the Portuguese expansion across the Atlantic. The third edition of this classic introduction to the period includes even greater use of contemporary voices,full reading lists, and new chapters on East Central Europe and Portuguese exploration. Suitable as an introductory text for undergraduate courses in Medieval Studies and Medieval European History.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

2006 National Jewish Book Award, Modern Jewish Thought Long the object of curiosity, admiration, and gossip, rabbis' wives have rarely been viewed seriously as American Jewish religious and communal leaders. We know a great deal about the important role played by rabbis in building American Jewish life in this country, but not much about the role that their wives played. The Rabbi’s Wife redresses that imbalance by highlighting the unique contributions of rebbetzins to the development of American Jewry. Tracing the careers of rebbetzins from the beginning of the twentieth century until the present, Shuly Rubin Schwartz chronicles the evolution of the role from a few individual rabbis' wives who emerged as leaders to a cohort who worked together on behalf of American Judaism. The Rabbi’s Wife reveals the ways these women succeeded in both building crucial leadership roles for themselves and becoming an important force in shaping Jewish life in America.

The autobiography of a German Jew, from Leipzig, now a rabbi, describing Jewish life and the antisemitism which began in the early 1930s, even before the Nazi takeover. Describing Nazi persecution of Jews, focuses on the expulsion of the Polish Jews in October 1938 and the rescue of some by the Polish consul in Leipzig. Gives details on the events of the "Kristallnacht" pogrom and the struggle of his family to emigrate in 1939. Out of 18,000 Jews in Leipzig in 1930, only 6,000 remained there in 1939; they were deported in various transports between 1942-45. Followed by an essay on Holocaust theology (pp. 148-159).