Houseman, John, Front & Center

John Lahr, a well-known theater critic himself has Assembled her the most perceptive critical essays available on that enigmatic masterpiece of Harold Pinter's The Homecoming. Also included are interviews that elucidate the approach to the play by the director, a designer, and various actors. As Lahr writes in his introduction:"What follows is a "casebook" of a play already acknowledged as a major contribution to the theater of this century. The book is divided between the practical and theoretical, a discussion and not a summing up.

As drama critic for The New Yorker, John Lahr has always striven to tell the story behind the story; to use biography and history as well as his skill as a critic to illuminate the theater and all of its players. "Light Fantastic is a wide-ranging, comprehensive collection of his best critical pieces exploring the heart and soul of the theater. From his penetrating examination of Oscar Wilde's path to self-destruction, to his tragic portrait of Joe Orton's corrosive relationship with Kenneth Halliwell; from his chronicle of the rise and fall and reprisal of the American musical to his insightful commentary on such playwrights as Tennessee Williams, Tony Kushner, Lillian Hellman, Arthur Miller and Tom Stoppard, John Lahr brilliantly illuminates the dazzling world of contemporary theater.

At the End of an Age is a deeply informed and rewarding reflection on the nature of historical and scientific knowledge. Of extraordinary philosophical, religious, and historical scope, it is the product of a great historian's lifetime of thought on the subject of his discipline and the human condition. While running counter to most of the accepted ideas and doctrines of our time, it offers a compelling framework for understanding history, science, and man's capacity for self-knowledge. In this work, John Lukacs describes how we in the Western world have now been living through the ending of an entire historical age that began in Western Europe about five hundred years ago. Unlike people during the ending of the Middle Ages or the Roman empire, we can know where we are. But how and what is it that we know? In John Lukacs's view, there is no science apart from scientists, and all of "Science," including our view of the universe, is a human creation, imagined and defined by fallible human beings in a historical continuum. This radical and reactionary assertion--in its way a summa of the author's thinking, expressed here and there in many of his previous twenty-odd books--leads to his fundamental assertion that, contrary to all existing cosmological doctrines and theories, it is this earth which is the very center of the universe--the only universe we know and can know.

In 1945 the United States saw the Soviet Union as its principal ally. By 1947, it saw the Soviet Union as its principal opponent. How did this happen? Historian John Lukacs has provided an answer to this question through an exchange of letters with George F. Kennan. Their correspondence deals with the antecedents of containment between 1944 and 1946, during most of which time Kennan was at the American embassy in Moscow. Kennan had strong opinions about America's appropriate role during and after World War II and is perhaps best known as the architect of America's containment policy. Much has been written about Kennan and containment, but relatively little is known about the events that made him compose and send the Long Telegram in 1946 that ultimately became the draft for foreign policy dealing with the Soviets in the following forty years. These letters show Kennan's fear of the extent to which the United States misunderstood the Soviet regime. Especially in 1944, at the time of the Russians' betrayal of the Warsaw Uprising, it became evident that the Soviets were interested in establishing their rigid domination of Eastern and Central Europe and dividing the continent. Kennan's letters to Lukacs are thorough and detailed, suggesting that the Truman administration was not in the least premature in opposing the Soviet Union. Indeed, both correspondents suggest that these decisions should have been made earlier. This series of letters will add greatly to our understanding of what preceded containment and the Cold War in 1947.

Reflects upon the discipline of history, claiming that the writing and teaching of history in higher education is in decline, and explores ways in which the future of the discipline can thrive.

A documentary maker evaluates the significant changes that have occurred throughout Japanese society in the past four decades, describes his relationships with some of the nation's important figures, and recounts how his close ties shaped his career

The period from 1910 to 1939 was one of the most explosive in British working class history. Them and Us looks at how the class struggle--embracing the struggles of women workers, immigrant workers, the unemployed and the fight against fascism--was fought in these years. The Labour Party and trade union leaderships were key players in the conflict, but their actions were often intended to undermine working class struggle. The ruling class had much to thank them for. Today when the working class is under a sustained and unprecedented attack from the Tories, Them and Us is an essential reminder of how past struggles were fought, of the unscrupulous nature of our enemy and of the need for militancy and solidarity to defeat them. John Newsinger draws on the words and actions of working class activists--and of their enemies--to bring to life key episodes in the struggle. Defeating the attempt to solve the current crisis at the expense of the working class requires a level of struggle that has not been seen in this country for many years. This is what we have to work towards and build for. Them and Us is a vital contribution to this fight. John Newsinger (1948- ) is a British Marxist and professor of history at Bath Spa University. Publisher's note.

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Here are speeches, essays, and articles from them man who turned Boston University into a major educational institution. John Silber speaks as an educator, parent, philosophical leader, and political observer and participant (Ahead in the polls, he probably would have been elected Governor of Massachusetts had he not run afoul of a beloved media personality. The famous incident is recounted in high style in Tom Wolfe's foreword). He tackles issues including education at all levels, culture and the media, democracy and international affairs. Delivered from 1971 to 2012, the speeches offer his incisive reflections on the Vietnam War, Watergate, student activism of the seventies, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, developments in science and technology, the increasing power of the media, global corporations, and many other issues. His style is lively, crisp, and pointed, spiked with his acerbic wit and guided by an ongoing search for wisdom. Mr. Silber was a model of probity and integrity in both his private and his public life, an intellectual pessimist and a congenital optimist. Even as he transformed Boston University from a sleepy and fast-declining "streetcar college," he spoke out on topical issues and principles on which our human fulfillment and national identity depended. Inspiring many and infuriating some, his was a life that mattered and his voice was one worth listening to.

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What we believe about the Bible is foundational to every part of life. Scripture is the very Word of God, the final authority for all of theology, the governing source of all other doctrines. In the latest volume of the Foundations of Evangelical Theology series, theology professor John S. Feinberg has written a landmark work on the doctrine of Scripture, offering a robust, serious treatment of topics such as revelation, the canon, inerrancy, infallibility, sufficiency, preservation, and more--all with the goal of helping readers cherish, obey, and be transformed by what God has spoken in his Word.

This is an authoritative assessment of thirteen of the most unimportant nations on the face of the earth. To achieve this milestone of journalism, John Sack traveled on innumerable planes, boats, trains, buses and one "bus", on the London tube, by muleback and by tonga, all the way from Lundy in the Bristol Channel to Sikkim on the borders of Tibet. The amazing fact is that all these countries exist. In adding not one word to the truth except his own relish and wit, John Sack has produced a wonderfully comic book.