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Jeffrey L. Rubenstein continues his grand exploration of the ancient rabbinic tradition of the Talmudic sages, offering deep and complex analysis of eight stories from the Babylonian Talmud to reconstruct the cultural and religious world of the Babylonian rabbinic academy. Rubenstein combines a close textual and literary examination of each story with a careful comparison to earlier versions from other rabbinic compilations. This unique approach provides insight not only into the meaning and content of the current forms of the stories but also into how redactors reworked those earlier versions to address contemporary moral and religious issues. Rubenstein's analysis uncovers the literary methods used to compose the Talmud and sheds light on the cultural and theological perspectives of the Stammaim — the anonymous editor-redactors of the Babylonian Talmud. Rubenstein also uses these stories as a window into understanding more broadly the culture of the late Babylonian rabbinic academy, a hierarchically organized and competitive institution where sages studied the Torah. Several of the stories Rubenstein studies here describe the dynamics of life in the academy: master-disciple relationships, collegiality and rivalry, and the struggle for leadership positions. Others elucidate the worldview of the Stammaim, including their perspectives on astrology, theodicy, and revelation.

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Perhaps no other historian has had a more profound and revolutionary impact on American education than Howard Zinn. This is the first book devoted to his views on education and its role in a democratic society. Howard Zinn on Democratic Education describes what is missing from school textbooks and in classrooms-and how we move beyond these deficiencies to improve student education. Critical skills of citizenship are insufficiently developed in schools, according to Zinn. Textbooks and curricula must be changed to transcend the recitation of received wisdom too common today in schools. In these respects, recent Bush Administration and educational policies of most previous US presidents have been on the wrong track in meeting educational needs. This book seeks to redefine national goals at a time when public debates over education have never been more polarised--nor higher in public visibility and contentious debate. Zinn's essays on education-many never before published--are framed in this book by a dialogue between Zinn and Donaldo Macedo, a distinguished critic of literacy and schooling, whose books with Paulo Freire, Noam Chomsky and other authors have received international acclaim.

Hetty was just twelve years old in 1943 when her family was torn apart by the Nazis. Rounded up from their home in Amsterdam, Hetty and her brothers were sent to the children's house at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. There, Hetty became known as the 'Little Mother', helping to look after the babies, toddlers and children through those terrible years. In her direct and powerful style, Hetty recalls one of the remarkable, largely untold stories of the Holocaust.

Considered among the most important Cold War records to emerge thus far by the former Beijing bureau chief of the New York Times, The Kissinger Transcripts gives readers the unvarnished record of Henry Kissinger's diplomacy during the Nixon years.

Sequal to Columbus: His Enterprise, this book describes the distruction of the native populations in America by the exploits of the Europeans from the Spanish conquest to present day.

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Qumran, Palestine, in 1947 was one of the greatest archaeological finds of all time. Written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, and hidden in caves by an ancient Jewish sect, these mysterious manuscripts revolutionized our understanding of the Bible, of Judaism and the early Christian world. Geza Vermes is the world's leading Dead Sea Scrolls scholar, whose English translations brought these extraordinary documents to thousands, and whose life has been inextricably interwoven with the scrolls for over sixty years. In this illuminating book he relates the controversial story of their discovery and publication around the world, revealing cover-ups, blunders and academic in-fighting, but also the passion and dedication of many of those involved. He shares what he has learned about the scrolls and, evaluating passages from them, gives his views on their true significance and what they can teach us, as well as those areas where scholarly consensus has not yet been reached. Few scholars have been as closely associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls as Vermes. Writing with candour and unique authority, he has created an ideal introduction to understanding these miraculous documents.

Rickman, the U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, gives a broad picture of the conspicuous rise of antisemitism worldwide in the 21st century. Factors involved in this increase are the collapse of the USSR and communism, and the simultaneous rise of post-Khomeini Iran and jihadi Islamism, as well as the rise of Europe's second-generation Muslims, who have become the main perpetrators of antisemitic violence. The new wave of antisemitism is accompanied by an almost total indifference of European authorities, as well as rhetoric attempting to equate Islamophobia with antisemitism, substituting Muslims for Jews as victims of "antisemitism". Tropes and statements of delegitimization of Israel, denial of a historical connection of Jews with the Land of Israel, and denial of the narratives of Judaism are increasingly gaining currency in Europe and the UN. Most of the Muslim countries remain steadily hostile to the Jews, and antisemitism continues to be a problem in the post-communist countries of Eastern Europe. Contends that in order to reduce antisemitism five practical steps should be taken: stop tolerating intolerance; define antisemitism for what it truly is; end the "tribal" view that each and every Jew bears responsibility for the actions of Israel, good or bad; collect data accurately and compile statistics on antisemitic incidents; and stop applying a double standard to Israel.

Did America's fortieth president lead a conservative counterrevolution that left liberalism gasping for air? The answer, for both his admirers and his detractors, is often "yes." In Morning in America , Gil Troy argues that the Great Communicator was also the Great Conciliator. His pioneering and lively reassessment of Ronald Reagan's legacy takes us through the 1980s in ten year-by-year chapters, integrating the story of the Reagan presidency with stories of the decade's cultural icons and watershed moments-from personalities to popular television shows. One such watershed moment was the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. With the trauma of Vietnam fading, the triumph of America's 1983 invasion of tiny Grenada still fresh, and a reviving economy, Americans geared up for a festival of international harmony that-spurred on by an entertainment-focused news media, corporate sponsors, and the President himself-became a celebration of the good old U.S.A. At the Games' opening, Reagan presided over a thousand-voice choir, a 750-member marching band, and a 90,000-strong teary-eyed audience singing "America the Beautiful!" while waving thousands of flags. Reagan emerges more as happy warrior than angry ideologue, as a big-picture man better at setting America's mood than implementing his program. With a vigorous Democratic opposition, Reagan's own affability, and other limiting factors, the eighties were less counterrevolutionary than many believe. Many sixties' innovations went mainstream, from civil rights to feminism. Reagan fostered a political culture centered on individualism and consumption-finding common ground between the right and the left. Written with verve, Morning in America is both a major new look at one of America's most influential modern-day presidents and the definitive story of a decade that continues to shape our times.

Predicts an imminent global political crisis, including a dangerous rivalry between America and China and a breakdown of the European Union, citing key events and contributors that have culminated in present-day instabilities.

This pioneering study wrestles with the perpetual problem of chronology in the Books of Kings. Starting from the conservative assumptions that the courts of Israel and Judah maintained regnal records, and that these for the most part accurately reflect regnal length, the author arrives at a new and persuasive dating for the reigns and their synchronisms. In addition, his chronological scheme includes all points of contact between Israel and Judah and external powers, especially Assyria. The result is one of the most responsible and yet most critical chronologies proposed to date, and will be the standard chronological reference for the next decade, if not longer.

U.S.S. Seawolf: Submarine Raider of the Pacific is the famous first-hand account of the legendary U.S. Navy submarine Seawolf a.k.a. the Wolf which patrolled the Pacific during the conflict with Japan in World War 2. Shoving off the day of Pearl Harbor, Chief Radioman J. (Joseph) M. (Melvin) Eckberg gives the reader a tense and detailed account of his initial 24-month stint aboard the Seawolf and beyond.

"During the fifth century following the withdrawal of the Roman military establishment from England, the armed incursions of the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and others of the Barbarian tribes from across the North Sea increased, and soon became a surge. After a relatively short time the subjugation of the British was complete and England a patchwork of waring domains and isolated settlements. Yet within the space of two centuries the English (as the tribes may collectively be called) had achieved a sense of themselves that may fairly be described as nationhood. It is the evolution of this sense and of the distinctive characteristics of England and the English that gave it form and substance which Geoffrey Elton traces through twelve centuries."--Jacket.

Demonstrating the candor and conviction that have made him one of our most trusted and incisive public voices, The New York Times columnist Frank Rich brilliantly and meticulously illuminates the Bush administration?s disturbing love affair with ?truthiness.? Rich?s step-by-step chronicle shows how, in the wake of 9/11, a propaganda president and his advisors misled a nation into war in Iraq and how the bungled aftermath, a Washington leak, and a devastating hurricane at long last revealed the lies in a story that had been so effectively sold to the nation as God-given patriotic fact.

"The volume offers a comprehensive introduction to the archaeology of the southern Levant (modern day Israel/Palestine/Jordan) from the Paleolithic period to the Islamic era, presenting the past with chronologically changes from hunter-gatherers to empires"--

My Further Disillusionment in Russia is a 1924 non-fiction book by Emma Goldman, her continuation of My Disillusionment in Russia, the original publication in which the last twelve chapters were entirely missing, including the Afterword.