In this timely and important collection of recent writings by a leading commentator, Sir Samuel Brittan expounds an individualist vision of liberalism which welcomes some of the New Labour policy initiatives, but rejects its communitarian rhetoric as well as its authoritarian echoes on the Right. This vision forms the context in which a number of current issues are discussed: the globalisation of the economy, the future of state-provided welfare, and the control of inflation among them. Sir Samuel does not limit himself to critical analysis of the past and the future: he sets out an agenda for the future in which are combined idealism and realism, frequently invoking the spirit and thought of David Hume himself.

Samuel Reshevsky is the ideal person to write a book on positional play because that was exactly the way he played: positionally. Reshevsky preferred to crush his opponents slowly, like a python, rather than to win with a blaze of tactics. Reshevsky was capable of great tactics, but felt it easier and more secure just to win by the slow build-up, gaining small advantages and then waiting for the opponent to throw himself on the sword with a brash counter-attack. The disadvantage is this takes a long time and most of the games in this book are long, but that makes them more instructive. A game won by sharp tactics does not teach much, unless that exact tactic arises again. The slow build-up that Reshevsky specialized in can be repeated again and again to bring home the point every time. Reshevsky goes through positional values, such as open files, avoidance of doubled pawns, consequences of weak pawns, bad bishops, unsupported pawn chains, blockade vs. breakthrough, using minority attacks, passed pawns in the middle game and rooks behind passed pawns. In each of these cases, he uses a top level grandmaster game to illustrate it, showing how the greatest players use these motifs to win their games at the highest levels.

Book by Dovlatov, Sergei

This volume combines rigorous empirical and theoretical analyses with political engagement to look beyond reductive short-hands that ignore the historical evolution and varieties of Islamic doctrine and that deny the complexities of Muslim societies' encounters with modernity itself. Are Islam and democracy compatible? Can we shed the language of 'Islam vs. the West' for new political imaginaries? The authors analyze struggles over political legitimacy since the Arab Spring and the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS in their historical and political complexity across the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region. Distinguishing multiculturalism from interculturalism and understanding multiple modernities, philosophers in the volume tease out the complexities of civilizational encounters. The volume also shows how the Paris massacres or the Danish caricature controversy do not remain confined to Europe but influence struggles and confrontations within Muslim societies. Gender and Islam are addressed from a comparative perspective bringing into conversation not only the experience of different Muslim countries with Islamic law but also by analysing Jewish family law.

In 1961, Beat writer Seymour Krim set Greenwich Village on its ear with a slim volume of essays that featured an unleashed voice, a brash title, and a foreword by Norman Mailer. James Baldwin called Views of a Nearsighted Cannoneer an "extraordinary volume." Saul Bellow published an excerpt in his journal The Noble Savage, and Mailer saluted Krim’s jazzy prose with its "shifts and shatterings of mood." Despite such praise and critical attention, Krim’s work is excluded from most Beat anthologies and is little known outside literary circles. With Missing a Beat, a collection of eighteen essays by Krim published between 1957 and 1989, Cohen introduces this influential writer to a new generation. In the Village Voice, New York Magazine, New York Times, and elsewhere, Krim pioneered a new style of subjective and personal reporting to write about the postwar American scene from a Jewish angle. Aggressively unacademic, Krim’s journalism displays the "rapid, nervous, breathless tempo" that Irving Howe called a hallmark of Jewish literature. Krim outlived his early literary fame, but he produced an impressive body of work and was a tremendous prose stylist. Missing a Beat resurrects an American original, finding Krim a new literary home among such celebrated writers as Norman Mailer, David Mamet, and Saul Bellow.

""Internationally acclaimed Israeli historian Shlomo Sand made his mark with books such as The Invention of the Jewish People and The Invention of the Land of Israel. Returning here to an early fascination, he turns his attention to the figure of the French intellectual. From his student years in Paris, Sand has throughout his life come up against the 'great French thinkers'. He has an intimate knowledge of the Parisian intellectual world and its little secrets, on which he draws to overturn certain myths attaching to the figure of the 'intellectual' that France prides itself on having invented. Mixing reminiscence and analysis, he revisits a history that, from the Dreyfus Affair through to Charlie Hebdo, seems to him that of a long decline. As a long-time admirer of Zola, Sartre and Camus, Sand is staggered to see what the French intellectual has become today, in such characters as Michel Houellebecq, Éric Zemmour and Alain Finkielkraut. In a work that gives no quarter, and focuses particularly on the Judeophobia and Islamophobia of the 'elites', he casts on the French intellectual scene a gaze that is both disabused and sarcastic."--Provided by publisher.

Menahem-Mendl is one of Sholom Aleichem's richest characterizations. An incurable optimist, whose every venture ends in disaster, he is the perennial Luftmensch who never ceases to build castles in the air. The exchange of letters between Menahem-Mendl, trying his luck in the bigger cities of Czarist Russia, and his wife, who remains behind in a small town in the hinterlands, relates his hilarious, but frustrating, experiences as he seeks his fortune-first as a currency and stock speculator (who cannot speculate), as a matchmaker (who cannot arrange marriages), as an author (who cannot write), and as an agent (who buys what he cannot sell). As his hopes repeatedly rise only to vanish in smoke, as he becomes involved with rascals and rogues, rich men and poor, the reader is at once amused and astounded by the predicaments in which he becomes entangled. But no more so than his long-suffering, ever-faithful wife, Sheineh-Sheindl -- scolding and querulous, but ever ready to succor him in his most desperate moments. In re-creating a vanished way of life with warmth and considerable verve, the book reflects the eternal human condition, equally true and meaningful today. "The adventures of Menahem-Mendl" is a memorable achievement-a masterwork by an eminent figure of world literature.

The years 1909-2009 marked a century of kibbutz life-one hundred years of achievements, challenges; and creative changes. The impact of kibbutzim on Israeli society has been substantial but is now waning. Contributors discuss the hopes, goals, frustrations, and disappointments of the kibbutz movement They also examine reform efforts intended to revitalize the institution and reinforce fading kibbutz ideals. The various studies presented in this book clarify the dynamism of the kibbutz institution and raises questions about the ways in which residential arrangements throughout the world manage change.

The McBrooms start a zoo with the Sidehill Gouger, Desert Vamooser, Silver-tailed Teakettler, and other rare animals left behind by a passing tornado.

"Those people who were betrayed were not innocent people. They were no better nor worse than I am. It's all part of the intelligence world. If the man who turned me in came to my house today, I'd invite him to sit down and have a cup of tea. George Blake was the last remaining Cold War spy. As a Senior Officer in the British Intelligence Service who was double agent for the Soviet Union, his actions had devastating consequences for Britain. Yet he was also one of the least known double agents, and remained unrepentant. In 1961, Blake was sentenced to forty-two years imprisonment for betraying to the KGB all of the Western operations in which he was involved, and the names of hundreds of British agents working behind the Iron Curtain. This was the longest sentence for espionage ever to have been handed down by a British court. On the surface, Blake was a charming, intelligent and engaging man, and most importantly, a seemingly committed patriot. Underneath, a ruthlessly efficient mole and key player in the infamous 'Berlin Tunnel' operation. This illuminating biography tracks Blake from humble beginnings as a teenage courier for the Dutch underground during the Second World War, to the sensational prison-break from Wormwood Scrubs that inspired Hitchcock to write screenplay. Through a combination of personal interviews, research and unique access to Stasi records, journalist Simon Kuper unravels who Blake truly was, what he was capable of, and why he did it"--Publisher's description

From the author of Stan and Ollie --a funny, fresh, and compelling look at Hollywood's Original King of Comedy From his early aspirations to sing opera, to his time under the tutelage of D. W. Griffith, to the fortune and notoriety that his uncanny eye for talent deservedly brought him, Mack Sennett stood behind his belief in individuality and originality. Now, more than eighty years after Sennett rose to heights that epitomized the American dream, the acclaimed biographer of Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, and W. C. Fields offers a compelling account of comedy's transformation at the hands of a true master. Regarded as the father of American slapstick, Sennett--iron-worker, boilermaker, actor, director, producer, writer, and creator of the infamous Keystone Kops--held audiences in thrall to a world where chaos was order and banana peels, car crashes, and leaps from tall buildings were a matter of course. As the cameras rolled and vaudeville gags morphed into celluloid wonders, the rising stars of Charlie Chaplin, Mabel Normand, and Gloria Swanson were born. Behind it all was the "King of Comedy," governing from his office bathtub. In this irresistible journey into early Hollywood at its peak, Simon Louvish crafts a fascinating portrait of the enigmatic entrepreneur. Through film scripts, telegrams, even liquor bills, Sennett's world is skillfully re-created, offering a rare and humorous glance into the infancy and innocence of moving pictures.

A reissue of Simon Schama's landmark study of the Netherlands from 1780--1813, this is a tale of a once-powerful nation's desparate struggle to survive the treacheries and brutality of European war and politics. Between 1780 and 1813 the Dutch Republic -- a country once rich enough to be called the cash till of Europe and powerful enough to make war with England -- was stripped of its colonies, invaded by its enemies, driven to the edge of bankruptcy, and, finally, reduced to becoming an appendage of the French empire -- an appendage not even the French seemed to value overmuch. Out of these events Simon Schama has constructed a gripping chronicle of revolution and privateering, constitutions and coups, in a tiny nation desperately struggling to stay afloat in a sea of geopolitics. Like his classics 'The Embarrassment of Riches' and 'Citizens', 'Patriots and Liberators' combines a mastery of historical sources with an unabashed delight in narrative. The result confirms Schama as a historian in the finest tradition -- one whose study of the past reveals volumes about the present. This is one of our most revered historians' greatest works, and this new Perennial edition will reintroduce his genius to a new generation of readers.

In 1860, fourteen-year-old Clem Fontayne learns from fellow travelers about important topics of the day, including the Mormon migration, slavery, and the Pony express, as he journeys from Missouri to California in search of his father.

Describes the events in Cynthia's life as she tries to prove she can provide a good home for the school's pet rat.

Leni describes her senior year of high school during which things at home, at school, and in her personal life happen with heightened intensity.

"Ruth Bussey knows what it means to be in the wrong - and to be wronged. She once did something she regrets, and was punished excessively for it. Now Ruth is trying to rebuild her life and has found a love she doesn't believe she deserves. Aidan Seed is a passionate, intense man who has also been damaged by his past. Desperate to connect with the woman he loves, he confides his secret: he killed a woman called Mary Trelease. Through her shock, Ruth recognises the name. And when she's realised why it's familiar, her fear and revulsion deepen. The Mary Trelease that Ruth knows is very much alive..."--Publisher description.

"The 2000 presidential left the world standing still, but it was no fluke. America is divided right down the middle - the product of a half-century, unique in our country's history, of inconclusive, increasingly heated partisan battle. Tantalizingly close to victory, each party inflames and mobilizes its most loyal supporters and battles to gain even a small edge with some contested groups. Politics has become culture war - a fight about values, faith, the family, how people should live their lives. The result: partisans are more partisan, politics more polarized, America more divided. This book tells the history of each party's failed efforts to dominate the era's politics and ideas, radically changing the political landscape and provides an in-depth guide to the new groups at the center of our politics"--