(Limelight). "He did what he wanted to do: with his wife Judith Malina he created the Living Theatre . . . Not an ivory tower, however: a headquarters of revolution, a guerrilla theater, though a pacifist one . . . He didn't get the kind of death he wanted . . . but . . . he had had the life he wanted . . . When such a life has been lived, who dares say theater is just a business? Who dares say it is just an art?" Eric Bentley

"The sociologist Daniel Bell was an uncommonly acute observer of the structural forces transforming the United States and other advanced societies in the twentieth century. The titles of Bell's major books-The End of Ideology (1960), The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (1973), and The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976)-became hotly debated frameworks for understanding the era when they were published. In Defining the Age, Paul Starr and Julian Zelizer bring together a group of distinguished contributors to consider how well Bell's ideas captured their historical moment and continue to provide profound insights into today's world. Wide-ranging essays demonstrate how Bell's writing has informed thinking about subjects such as the history of socialism, the roots of the radical right, the emerging postindustrial society, and the role of the university. The book also examines Bell's intellectual trajectory and distinctive political stance. Calling himself "a socialist in economics, a liberal in politics, and a conservative in culture," he resisted being pigeon-holed, especially as a neoconservative. Defining the Age features essays from historians Jenny Andersson, David A. Bell, Michael Kazin, and Margaret O'Mara; sociologist Steven Brint; media scholar Fred Turner; and political theorists Jan-Werner Müller and Stefan Eich. While differing in their judgments, they agree on one premise: Bell's ideas deserve the kind of nuanced and serious attention that they finally receive in this book"--

Taxing America, first published in 1999, offers an interpretation of the American state between 1945 and 1975 by tracing the career of Wilbur D. Mills, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee from 1958 to 1974. Blending methodological insights from history, political science, and sociology, Julian Zelizer provides one of the first comparative histories of income taxation, Social Security, and Medicare in this study of the crucial role Mills played in negotiating between the tax policy community and Congress. Taxing America lays out four innovative arguments about the expansion of the state during the postwar period; Congress played a crucial role in the institutionalization of the state after World War II, policy communities helped encourage policymaking, taxation was central to postwar liberalism and its domestic agenda, and a fragile alliance between influential fiscal conservatives and the state was instrumental in expanding support of the policies of the tax community.

First-ever new edition of The Water Wheel, the 1933 semi-autobiographical debut novel by Julian L. Shapiro, who later achieved cult status writing as John Sanford. From the original edition's dust jacket: "The Water Wheel recounts both the real and imagined-real adventures of one John B. Sanford in New York and London over a short period in 1927. The novel is completely dominated by Sanford, a self-assumed individualist--and self-styled 'lawclerk, sinner, ex-convict, adolescent, grandson and legatee of a Litvak matchvendor.' "The author has maintained a rigid objectivity, at no time intruding upon the narrative, or showing his hand by making Sanford a mouth-piece for the expression of ideas outside the scope of the novel. Notwithstanding the author's neutrality, only the most literal will overlook in Sanford a character definitely in our time. "In form, The Water Wheel has no counterpart in American letters. It deliberately avoids the traditional, but its objectives are always clarity and simplicity. The many technical and typographical innovations are designed to suit the subject matter, and are not fake-modern tricks."

Two Englishmen have met suspicious ends in Veniceone by gunshot, the other by drowning. That much is certain but nothing else is. Murder? Suicide? Accident? Another mystery is the anonymous notes sent to residents of a quiet English village, spreading the scandalous though false word of an affair between Derek Crowley and Gerda Porson. She is the wife of Crowley's business partner, the unspeakable Charles Porson, a tireless macho who adores handguns and the spanking-and-bondage ritual meted out by his bored, disgusted wife, who is in love only with his money. Was the drug-laced Bloody Mary intended for Porson? How to explain Derek's wife's penchant for masculine clothing? Who loaded the supposedly blank pistol in an amateur theatrical production? Long afterward, Jason Durling's brilliant deductive sleuthing will resolve the murders left unsolved by trhe Italian police and ignored by Scotland Yard; but he will come to great grief in his turn. Again Symons meets his own high standards: this tale is quickwitted, civilized, highly intelligent, sharply observed, complicated without being cluttered, and always in the firm control of a dextrous and accomplished storyteller.

Buller's Campaign is a powerful and invaluable reassessment of the life of General Buller and of the part he played in British military history. Beginning with his struggle for the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Army in 1895, it goes on to portray his role in the Boer War, and on its path, reveals many of the Victorian Imperialist attitudes of the day. A man of numerous failures, General Buller has been treated unkindly by history but Symons here seeks to paint a more rounded picture. Whilst never attempting to excuse the General's mistakes, he portrays Buller as a complex and often misunderstood character and reveals the deep ironies that surrounded so much of what he achieved. This is an exceptional book and an outstanding contribution to military history.

This is a collection of articles, reviews, interviews and essays by the 1990 Cartier Diamond Dagger award winner - critic and writer, Julian Symons. Following an introduction entitled The Crime Story Yesterday, Today, Tommorrow, this book offers a collection of Symons's writing on crime fiction from Britain, the United States and elsewhere, plus a section on real life stories, such as The Hiss Affair and the Yorkshire Ripper.

Decades after the fact, Geoffrey Elder calls on Julian Symons to clear the name of his father, accused not only of a playboy poet's murder but of having an affair with the man's lover. An ingenious mystery follows, weaving together flashbacks from the 1930s with Geoffrey's passionate desire to avenge his father.

Adelaide, wife of a prosperous London grocer, was tried for murder in 1886 and acquitted because the jury could not "imagine her administering chloroform to her sleeping husband". Here a solution to the case is offered.

In 1950 for a series of short stories for London's Evening Standard newspaper, Julian Symons invented Private Detective Francis Quarles. After engaging in mysterious activities during the Second World War, Quarles opened an office in Trafalgar Square from where he investigates puzzles ranging from robbery to murder. Contains 42 previously uncollected stories.

In May 1926, Britain was gripped by what became known as the General Strike. This downing of tools lasted for nine days, during which time it divided the people, threatened the survival of the government of the day and brought the country nearer to revolution that it perhaps had ever been. In this accurate and lively account, Symons draws on contemporary press reports, letters and oral sources, along with TUC records to provide an invaluable historical account of the remarkable event and the people and places that featured so prominently in it.

Actor/detective Sheridan Haynes is confronted with a missing manuscript, a mad mogul, and murder in this intelligent, complex novel from Julian Symons.

An anthology of crime stories features murder, suspense, and a glimpse into man's potential for evil