420 results for "History"

Full Circle A Memoir

Edith Kurzweil
This is a personal history of the twentieth century as seen through the eyes of Edith Kurzweil, author, teacher, editor of Partisan Review, and a recent recipient of the National Medal of Humanities. The book opens with Kurzweil early adolescence in Vienna during the Nazi takeover. It ends with the author finding herself in the new century. In between, she kept moving on and interrogating the world around her. The reader follows Kurzweil on her perilous journey, at the age of fourteen, to Belgium, through France, Spain, and Portugal, alone with her younger brother. Her fantasies of reunion with her parents in New York kept her going but came to naught: she had not expected to fall from a wealthy childhood into the life of the working-class poor, as a millinery apprentice or a diamond cutter. Instead of entering college life, she eventually became a conventional American housewife. Unhappy and anxious, she anticipated the social changes in America, and returned to Europe with her second husband and her two children. She arrived at the beginning of the Italian miracle--its post-war revitalization. In Milan she met many Americans as an active member of its community and of the British-American club. After personal tragedy she returned to New York, and only then pursued her early intellectual ambitions. The author eventually became a professor of sociology and quickly climbed up the academic ladder. Just as she had been as a little girl, she still "wanted to know everything," beginning with her study of Italian entrepreneurs and going on to European history and French thought, to psychoanalysis and anti-Semitism. Her early writings prompted William Phillips, co-founder and editor of Partisan Review, to invite her into the elite circle of New York intellectuals. She worked alongside him, first as a reader, then as executive editor, and took over the editorship of the legendary journal during its final period. Kurzweil's journey was one of courage, and of emotional and intellectual growth. Full Circle will be of interest to intellectual and cultural historians, literary and Holocaust scholars, and American studies specialists.
Taylor & Francis Group 2017-10-06 310 pages

The Gods of Antenna

Bruce Herschensohn
If the new generation is not told accurate information, then not only will the new generation and the generations that follow be misguided but, more importantly, the policy makers of the future will be making decisions based on mis-assessments. There are three areas in which the truth of the past has been tragically misrepresented: The actions of the President, the role of the media, and the buried legacy of the South Vietnamese, the Laotians, the Cambodians and, of course, the Americans who gave their lives for the liberty of others. There is no higher morality than dying for the well-being of a stranger, and that is what they did. Their enemies were not only on the battlefield: many of their enemies are still revising the history of those days, either to justify their past actions, or to cloak their consciences, or they simply don't know the truth because they have been bombarded by those who rejected it. Their recorded words and fictionalized images are, at best, what they think is true, and at worst, are meant to deceive you.
iUniverse 2000-11 152 pages

Why Read Selected Writings 2001âe 2021

Will Self
From the Booker-shortlisted author of Umbrella , a world-girdling collection of writings inspired by a life lived in and for literature From one of the most unusual and distinctive writers working today, dubbed "the most daring and delightful novelist of his generation" by the Guardian , Will Self's Why Read is a cornucopia of thoughtful and brilliantly witty essays on writing and literature. Self takes us with him: from the foibles of his typewriter repairman to the irradiated exclusion zone of Chernobyl, to the Australian outback, and to literary forms past and future. With his characteristic intellectual brio, Self aims his inimitable eye at titans of literature like Woolf, Kafka, Orwell, and Conrad. He writes movingly on W.G. Sebald's childhood in Germany and provocatively describes the elevation of William S. Burroughs's Junky from shocking pulp novel to beloved cult classic. Self also expands on his regular column in Literary Hub to ask readers, how, what, and ultimately why we should read in an ever-changing world. Whether he is writing on the rise of the bookshelf as an item of furniture in the nineteenth century or on the impossibility of Googling his own name in a world lived online, Self's trademark intoxicating prose and mordant, energetic humor infuse every piece. A book that examines how the human stream of consciousness flows into and out of literature, Why Read will satisfy both old and new readers of this icon of contemporary literature.
Grove/Atlantic, Incorporated 2024-01-09 336 pages

Cry Havoc! The Great American Bring-down and how it Happened

Ralph de Toledano
In Cry Havoc!, legendary journalist Ralph de Toledano documents in chilling detail how a cabal of intellectuals, educrats, and politicians, manipulated by a well-financed, world-wide conspiracy, organized a strategy to undermine the American system -- and how this has been accomplished."Cry Havoc is must-reading." -- William F. Buckley, Jr."Cry Havoc is not only well written, but absolutely right." -- Prof. Herbert London
Anthem Books 2006 254 pages

They Must Go

Rabbi Meir Kahane,Meir Kahane
"Every day," writes Rabbi Meir Kahane, "the Arabs of Israel move closer to becoming a majority. Are we [Israel] committed to national suicide? Should we allow demography, geography, and democracy to push Israel closer to the abyss? According to Rabbi Kahane, Israel can only be sustained by a permanent Jewish majority and a small, insignificant, and placid Arab minority. But the Arab population continues to grown quantitatively and qualitatively. They feel no ties for a state that breathes Jewishness. They mockingly accept moneys from the National Insurance Institute for medical services, tuition, and social welfre; yet they pay little or no tax. Even worse, they openly vow to destroy the Jewish state - not with bullets or bombs, but with the democratic vote. Is there a solution? Rabbi Kahane insists, "Yes." In this explosive manifesto Rabbi Kahane sets forth the only plan to save Israel. Israeli Arabs would be given the options of accepting noncitizenship, leaving willingly with compensation, or being forcibly expelled without compensation. Controversial? Yes. Could the Arabs be convinced to leave? "We will not come to the Arabs to request, argue, or convince," says Kahane. "For Jews and Arabs in Israel there is only one answer - separation. Jews in their land, Arabs in theirs. Separation. Only separation." They Must Go was written in 1980 while Rabbi Meir Kahane was jailed in Ramle Prison by the Israeli government under an unprecedented administrative detention order that imprisoned him without a trial, without his being informed of any specific charge, and without opportunity to know or to question any alleged evidence or witness. His crime: his philosophy concerning the danger that exists to the state of Israel by the very presence of its large and growing Arab population. Rabbi Kahane's ideas were suppressed, twisted, defamed, and subjected to emotional and hysterical diatribes by people who were too frightened to consider them intelligently or to debate them intellectually. Is there a time bomb ticking away relentlessly in the Holy Land? Can Arabs and Jews ultimately coexist in a Jewish-Zionist state? Rabbi Kahane's only answer: "They Must Go."
www.bnpublishing.com 2019-04-08 292 pages

Demonizing Israel and the Jews

Manfred Gerstenfeld
Today, well over 150 million Europeans embrace a satanic view of the State of Israel. They believe that Israel is exterminating the Palestinians, despite their major population growth in recent decades. This current widespread demonic view of Israel is a new mutation of the diabolical beliefs about Jews which many held in the Middle Ages, and those promoted more recently by the Nazis and their allies. This demonization has been exacerbated by the consequences of the massive and non-selective immigration into Western Europe from Muslim countries, where incitement against Jews and Israel is often fanatic and ongoing. This collection of 57 interviews with scholars, politicians, and the like, depicts how extensive and intense the hate-mongering is. In his opening essay, Gerstenfeld puts the facts and views presented in the book into context. Praise: "Gerstenfeld helps us all understand the world's oldest hatred." -Rabbi Marvin Hier Founder and Dean Simon Wiesenthal Center "An authoritative, up-to-date guide to the cultural-ideological war being waged against the democratic Jewish state." -Prof. Frederick Krantz Director, Canadian Institute Jewish Research "This superb collection of incisive interviews on the demonization of Israel and the Jews should be located on the bookshelves of every committed Jewish activist." -Isi Leibler Former Chairman Governing Board World Jewish Congress "Manfred Gerstenfeld's collection of interviews on anti-Semitism and its proxy, delegitimization of Israel, is brilliantly selected and encyclopedic in scope. His own essay tying the interviews together makes this required reading for those who want to understand where anti-Semitism is today." -Richard B. Stone Chairman Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
RVP Press 2013-07 230 pages

The Forgotten Americans

John E. Schwarz,Thomas J. Volgy
Does the American Dream still exist when nearly 30 million Americans live in families in which workers find a paycheck and poverty in the same envelope? Just as Michael Harrington's The Other America shocked the nation with its disclosure of poverty in the 1960s, John E. Schwarz and Thomas J. Volgy's The Forgotten Americans exposes the breadth of poverty that exists today among responsible, hardworking Americans. At the end of the prosperous 1980s, the number of Americans living in working-poor families equaled the combined populations of the nation's 25 largest cities. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this situation is not largely confined to minorities, women, the undereducated or young adults. It is commonplace for workers from nearly all segments of society to be employed in low-paying jobs even during good economic times. The Forgotten Americans reveals the betrayal of the hopes and expectations of these industrious people through broad-based factual evidence and the real-life stories of individual families. Their hardship has been ignored at enormous cost to them and the country. Numerous problems at the forefront of national debate--welfare dependency, crime, and the inadequate performance of many American school children--are closely connected to the existence of working poverty on a large scale. Unless corrective action is taken, the country risks the creation of a deeply fractured society arising from the despair of millions of employed people who have discovered that practicing the work ethic yields little reward. The problem is staggering and often misunderstood by politicians, the media, and the public. Once Schwarz and Volgy have outlined the implications of this social and economic tragedy, they propose effective solutions that require simple changes to existing policies--solutions that are politically feasible and can be accomplished without new taxes.
W. W. Norton & Company 1993 219 pages

The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States

Fritz Machlup
The Production And Distribution Of Knowledge In The United States is a comprehensive book written by Fritz Machlup that explores the ways in which knowledge is produced and disseminated in the United States. The book covers a wide range of topics related to knowledge production and distribution, including the role of universities, scientific research, and intellectual property rights. Machlup also examines the impact of technology on knowledge production and distribution, as well as the ways in which knowledge is used in various sectors of the economy. The book provides a detailed analysis of the complex processes involved in the creation and dissemination of knowledge, and offers insights into the challenges and opportunities facing knowledge-based industries in the United States. Overall, The Production And Distribution Of Knowledge In The United States is a valuable resource for anyone interested in understanding the dynamics of knowledge production and distribution in modern society.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.
Literary Licensing, LLC 2012-08 436 pages

The Ellen Meiksins Wood Reader

Ellen Meiksins Wood
Ellen Meiksins Wood is a leading contemporary political theorist who has been described as the founder, together with Robert Brenner, of Political Marxism,' a distinct version of historical materialism which has inspired a research program that spans a number of academic disciplines. Organized thematically, this Reader provides an overview of her original interpretations of capitalism, and many different topics.
Haymarket Books 2013-11-05 368 pages

From Suburb to Shtetl The Jews of Boro Park

Egon Mayer,William B. Helmreich
"From Suburb to Shtetl" is an outstanding ethnography that moves beyond simple demographics. Mayer weaves an intricate tapestry of how family, school, and community leaders influence each other. Whether discussing the role of the rebbe or the matchmaker, those who know these communities will find what he says as relevant today as it was when first penned. This is hardly surprising, for the ultra-Orthodox community takes great pride in not changing, in maintaining itself as it was in Europe despite the allure of modern American society. His discussion of synagogue life is particularly informative and evocative. Those in charge of helping immigrants adopted the path of least resistance, allowing and even encouraging them to retain their identities except for those few aspects that might threaten the country's national interests. The American Orthodox community was tremendously augmented by the arrival from Europe, after World War Two, of thousands of Orthodox Jews who remained devoted to that way of life. Egon Mayer was himself part of a smaller, but significant group of Jews who came to the U.S. and settled mostly in Boro Park in the wake of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. The interaction between the Hasidim and their less fervent Orthodox counterparts described and analyzed in this volume tells us a great deal about how people negotiate their beliefs, values, and norms when forced into close contact with each other in an urban setting within the larger American culture. By exploring these and many other related issues Mayer has given us the chance to assess and forecast the future of American Jewish life as a whole.
Taylor & Francis Group 2017-10-12 214 pages

Cutting Up Touches A Brief History of Pockets and the People who Pick Them

David Avadon
Show business junkies, magic fans and lovers of the variety arts, put your hands on your wallets and read on. Cutting Up Touches is the first book ever written on the history of exhibition pickpocketing. This specialty act features dynamic performers who deftly steal watches and wallets - even neckties and belts from unsuspecting volunteers. F.D.R., J. Edgar Hoover, Pierce Brosnan and Michael Douglas are some of the many celebrities and political figures who've found their pockets emptied by these light-fingered showmen. David Avadon, one of the smoothest pickpockets in the country, unveils the rich history of this fascinating entertainment from its music hall beginnings to the largest showrooms in the world. He explores the powerful subliminal emotions touched by each act of theatrical theivery. This street crime turned performance art is unique among all entertainments. It is the human-to-human activity which most closely resembles bull fighting. Avadon puts the reader wise to the wires, dips and cannons of the street corner variety then, in elegant prose, limns the masters of stealing on stage: Dr. Giovanni, Borra, Dominique and many, many more. Illustrated with photos, playbills and posters, many published here for the first time.
Squash Pub. 2007 148 pages

Doing Fieldwork: The Correspondence of Robert Redfield and Sol Tax

Rubinstein, Robert A.
Prior to the 1930s the highlands of Guatemala were largely undescribed, except in travelogues. Just two decades later, the highlands had become one of the most anthropologically well-investigated areas of the world. This is largely due to the research that Robert Redfield and Sol Tax carried out between 1934 and 1941. Separately and together, Redfield and Tax anticipated and guided anthropological investigations of people living in peasant and urban communities in other areas of the world. Their work helped to define the major outlines of research in the 1970s, and since then much writing about the region has been formulated in critical response to the Redfield-Tax program. Not coincidentally, since the mid-1970s anthropology has been caught up in a wave of self-doubt about the status of fieldwork and the authority of ethnographic description. This critical stance has often cast ethnography as a creative, literary enterprise. This volume presents a timely view of the process of ethnography as carried out by two of its early practitioners. Containing a wealth of ethnographic detail, the book reveals how Redfield and Tax developed and tested ethnological hypotheses, and it allows us to follow the development of their major theoretical statements. The result is an exceptionally clear picture of the process of ethnography. Redfield and Tax emerge as rigorous and sensitive observers of social life whose observations bear importantly on contemporary understandings of the ethnology of Guatemala and the enterprise of anthropology. This book will be of interest to students of method and theory in ethnography, Latin Americanists, and other professionals interested in the history of idea.
[distributor] Taylor & Francis, c/o Bookpoint 2017-08-02 354 pages

The Boy He Left Behind A Man's Search for His Lost Father

Mark Matousek
Search-Cover"I was four years old when my father came back to kidnap me," begins this gripping memoir about Matousek's search for James Matousek, the drifter father he never knew. Described by the New York Times as " part reminiscence, part detective story, part spiritual musing," this memoir is more than the story of one man's search for his father; it is also a look at the meaning of life and how fathers contribute to that meaning. Growing up in a family of troubled women (Matousek's sister committed suicide when the author was 29), he describes the turmoil of growing up "fatherless in America" - an experience shared by millions of children in what sociologists have called the Age of the Absent Father - and the difficult, ultimately successful, struggle to figure out what being a man really means in an age of shifting definitions, evolving sexuality, and "breaking out the man box" of stereotyping and patriarchy. With the tension of a mystery story, the climax occurs when Matousek meets a man he believes to be his father. But is he? And does Matousek, who has reconciled with his mother as she lay dying, really care? These are just two questions leading to this memoir's surprising conclusion. Praise for The Boy He Left Behind "Mark Matousek's memoir The Boy He Left Behind begins with the gripping sentence, 'I was four years old when my father came back to kidnap.' Part reminiscence, part detective story, part spiritual musing, the book is more than the story of one man's search for his father, it is also a look at the meaning of life and how fathers contribute to that meaning." -The New York Times Book Review "This thoughtful and lovingly rendered portrait of an American childhood is a refreshing addition to the genre. Matousek not only tells his own story but brilliantly evokes the troubled lives of his mother and sisters with humor, honesty, and above all, compassion." -Kathleen Norris, author of The Cloister Walk and Amazing Grace "A riveting story in the hands of a master storyteller. Mark Matousek has written a family memoir that is tight and revealing. This is one fine book." -James McBride, author of The Color of Water "[A] searing memoir....The writing is exhilarating...deeply soulful, compassionate, and self-scrutinizing. It is an explosive memoir filled with prose that sings, one that provokes readers to question where we come from and what our places are in this world. Matousek...writes from the heart. Read this book" -Los Angeles Magazine "Matousek's account of his search for the father he hadn't seen since he was four [is] sharp and funny, thanks to the punchy dialogue and dead-on character sketches." -Elle "Interweaving the frustrating suspenseful search for his long-lost father with unsparing recollections of a fatherless boyhood and his confrontation with a life-threatening disease, Mark Matousek expertly guides you through the particulars of his life into a harrowing meditation on the difficulties of becoming a man in a country without fathers. The Boy He Left Behind is beautifully crafted, artful and inspiring. It merits a place alongside the late Paul Monette's masterwork, Becoming a Man; Half a Life Story. Like Monette, Matousek's triumph is twofold - In the book he has written, and in the man he has become. Matousek's probing memoir of lost childhood and found history celebrates the power of manhood." -The Utne Reader "Mark Matousek has produced [a] riveting account of his search-at age 38, with the help of a private detective-for the father who abandoned him at age four. A searing meditation on the psychic harm suffered by men and women without fathers, this wise odyssey wrestles with questions of life and death and the search for the meaning of one's existence." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform 2008-06 272 pages