14302 results for "History"

The strange survival of liberal Britain: politics and power before the First World War

Bogdanor, Vernon
The turbulent years of 1895 to 1914 changed Britain’s political landscape for ever. They saw a transition from aristocratic rule to mass politics and heralded a new agenda which still dominates today. The issues of the period – economic modernisation, social welfare and equality, secondary and technical education, a new role for Britain in the world – were complex and difficult. Indeed, they proved so thorny that despite the efforts of the Edwardians they remain among the most pressing problems we face in the twenty-first century. The period has often been seen as one of decadence, of the strange death of liberal Britain. In contrast, Vernon Bogdanor believes that the robustness of Britain’s parliamentary and political institutions and her liberal political culture, with the commitment to rational debate and argument, were powerful enough to carry her through one of the most trying periods of her history and so make possible the remarkable survival of liberal Britain. In this wide-ranging and sometimes controversial survey, one of our pre-eminent political historians dispels the popular myths that have grown up about this critical period in Britain’s story and argues that it set the scene for much that is laudable about our nation today. --
Biteback Publishing Ltd 2022 880 pages

My Holocaust

Reich, Tova
Maurice and Norman Messer, father-and-son business partners, know a good product when they see it. That product is the Holocaust, and Maurice, a Holocaust survivor with an inflated personal history, and Norman, enjoying vicarious victimhood as a participant in the second-generation movement, proceed to market it enthusiastically. Not even the disappearance of Nechama, Norman's daughter and Maurice's granddaughter, into the Carmelite convent at Auschwitz, where she is transformed into a nun, Sister Consolatia of the Cross, deters them from pushing their agenda. Father and son embark on a tour of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, which Maurice - now the driving force behind the most powerful Holocaust memorialization institution in America - organizes to soften up a potential major donor, and which Norman takes advantage of to embark on a surrealistic search for his daughter. At the death camp they run into assorted groups and individuals all clamoring for a piece of the Holocaust, including Buddhist New Agers on a retreat, Israeli schoolchildren on a required heritage pilgrimage, a Holocaust artifact hustler, filmmakers, and an astonishing collection of others. All hell breaks loose when Maurice's museum is taken over by a coalition of self-styled victims seeking Holocaust status, bringing together a vivid cast of all-too-human characters, from Holocaust professionals to Holocaust wannabees of every persuasion, in the fevered competition to win the grand prize of owning the Holocaust. An inspiringly courageous and shockingly original tour-de-force, My Holocaust dares to penetrate territory until now considered sacrosanct in its brilliantly provocative and darkly comic exploration of the uses and abuses of memory and the meaning of human suffering.
HarperCollins 2007 326 pages

Psychiatry: the science of lies

Szasz, Thomas
For more than half a century, Thomas Szasz has devoted much of his career to a radical critique of psychiatry. His latest work, Psychiatry: The Science of Lies, is a culmination of his life’s work: to portray the integral role of deception in the history and practice of psychiatry. Szasz argues that the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness stands in the same relationship to the diagnosis and treatment of bodily illness that the forgery of a painting does to the original masterpiece. Art historians and the legal system seek to distinguish forgeries from originals. Those concerned with medicine, on the other hand—physicians, patients, politicians, health insurance providers, and legal professionals—take the opposite stance when faced with the challenge of distinguishing everyday problems in living from bodily diseases, systematically authenticating nondiseases as diseases. The boundary between disease and nondisease—genuine and imitation, truth and falsehood—thus becomes arbitrary and uncertain. There is neither glory nor profit in correctly demarcating what counts as medical illness and medical healing from what does not. Individuals and families wishing to protect themselves from medically and politically authenticated charlatanry are left to their own intellectual and moral resources to make critical decisions about human dilemmas miscategorized as “mental diseases” and about medicalized responses misidentified as “psychiatric treatments.” Delivering his sophisticated analysis in lucid prose and with a sharp wit, Szasz continues to engage and challenge readers of all backgrounds.
Syracuse University Press 2019-02-28 148 pages

Jade Phoenix

Syd Goldsmith
THE NEW VOICES IN LITERATURE AWARD FINALIST A WILLIAM FAULKNER COMPETITION SEMI-FINALIST " a marvelous collage of history, politics, mystery and romance." Pat Averbach, Director, Chautauqua Writers Center When Taiwanese millionaire Ko-sa Ong shows up in Washington with Jade Phoenix by his side, Nick Malter, his best friend, and his lost "Angel" would all rather be in some other country. But Taiwan is no ordinary country in the 1970s. Against all odds, Ko-sa has everything he could want except a son and a nation. Jade Phoenix has nothing after her father, a senior Nationalist general, commits suicide. Nick Malter, an American reporter, peers under the veils that cloak the Chinese and their women. Love blooms in a wilderness of misunderstanding. Ko-sa and Nick share an abiding hatred of Chiang Kai-shek and the cynical American Secretary of State who would forever deny the Taiwanese their country. They risk all for each other, but both give up everything for the love of Jade Phoenix. A stroke of the pen shatters dreams of nationhood and foreign devils challenge ancient Chinese customs in this extraordinary cross-cultural adventure. Betrayal and trust forge uncontrollable urges, fierce loyalties, and love that extends beyond life itself.
iUniverse 2006-02 328 pages

Poison: A novel

Schaeffer, Susan Fromberg
The death of flamboyant writer and womanizer Peter Grosvenor sets in motion a series of spiraling events surrounding his legacy and his estate. His bitter third wife, his two children, his sister, his friends, and his would-be biographers are drawn into a maelstrom of intense memories and painful encounters as each of the major players in Peter's life seeks to appropriate Peter's estate for his or her own purposes. As a complex story of passion, jealousy, and loss unfolds, the figures that had once blossomed in Peter's presence spin off into their own orbits and turn against one another without the anchor of his charismatic presence. Ultimately, the tragedy and scandal that marred his life cannot be ended even by his death. Susan Fromberg Schaeffer writes with exquisite flavor and measure; character, history, and relationships build into a large, minutely detailed canvas and remind us why she is a master of the epic novel. Reading group guide included.
W W Norton & Co Ltd 2007-04-24 608 pages

The complete correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Karl Abraham, 1907-1925

Freud, Sigmund
Karl Abraham was an important and influential early member of Freud's inner circle of trusted colleagues. As such he played a significant part in the establishment of psychoanalysis as a recognised and respected discipline. Regarded by Ernest Jones as one of the best clinical analysts among his contemporaries1 he also elaborated and expanded upon Freud's theories. Exploring first-hand the complex relationship and rivalries that existed not only between Freud and his master pupil, but also the details of their combined and individual relationships with Jung, this substantial and absorbing collection of letters enables the reader to gain valuable insights into these two pioneers of psychoanalysis.'Since psychoanalysis is established as an essential part of the history of ideas for the last century, intellectual historians should relish the fact that an absolutely excellent and full edition of this correspondence has finally come out.'
Karnac 2002 626 pages

The Boat Man

Selina Rosen
Product Description According to News Week, in fifty years, the number of people over sixty-five will be greater than the number of people under twenty-five for the first time in history. This novella is a look at what MIGHT happen. Detective Vickey Grip has never been very fond of the elderly. She blames them for every bad thing that has ever happened to her, and holds them singularly responsible for ruining the United States. But even she never would have believed what's going on in the small town of Boiling Springs. There's something in the water, and it isn't good! About the Author Selina Rosen lives in rural Arkansas with her partner of over 8 years and her nearly grown son. Her work has appeared in several magazines and anthologies. Selina is also the author of several novels, QUEEN OF DENIAL from Meisha Merlin Publishing,and THE HOST, FRIGHT EATER, and GANG APPROVAL, from Yard Dog Press. All titles are available from Amazon.com. Selina's hobbies include gardening, sword fighting, and hanging out in bars. She's not much of a gardener, mediocre at sword fighting, however rumor has it that she is actually guite good at hanging out in bars. (For those of you who are humor challenged, that was a joke.)
Yard Dog Press 1999 60 pages

Inside of time: my journey from Alaska to Israel

Gruber, Ruth
Inside of Time is a book for everyone eager to read about the personal and human side of our stirring times. The vivid recollections of a trailblazing eyewitness to history, combined with stories of Gruber's intimate friendships with luminaries of the century, has created a book to cherish. In the Roosevelt administration and as a foreign correspondent with the New York Herald Tribune, Gruber worked with, wrote about, and was mentored by a cast that included Harold Ickes, FDR's Secretary of the Interior, who in 1941 appointed Gruber as his personal representative to Alaska; Helen Rogers Reid, Herald Tribune publisher and Gruber's boss, who scheduled her to speak at lecture forums where Gruber shared the podium with Churchill and DeGaulle; Golda Meir, with whom she swapped kitchen table confidences about their families; David Ben-Gurion, whose prophetic voice made him the most inspiring leader Gruber ever knew; and Eleanor Roosevelt, whom Gruber shepherded to Israel in the early 1950s. Spanning 1941–1955, Gruber also recalls the fierce anti-Semitism she overcame in Congress, the DP camps she saw in Germany after WWII, and traveling with the Israeli army during the War for Independence. Sixteen pages of photographs add to this enthralling autobiography by one of America's best journalists.
Carroll & Graf 2003 381 pages

Food chains: from farmyard to shopping cart

Warren James Belasco,Roger Horowitz
In recent years, the integrity of food production and distribution has become an issue of wide social concern. The media frequently report on cases of food contamination as well as on the risks of hormones and cloning. Journalists, documentary filmmakers, and activists have had their say, but until now a survey of the latest research on the history of the modern food-provisioning system--the network that connects farms and fields to supermarkets and the dining table--has been unavailable. In Food Chains , Warren Belasco and Roger Horowitz present a collection of fascinating case studies that reveal the historical underpinnings and institutional arrangements that compose this system. The dozen essays in Food Chains range widely in subject, from the pig, poultry, and seafood industries to the origins of the shopping cart. The book examines what it took to put ice in nineteenth-century refrigerators, why Soviet citizens could buy ice cream whenever they wanted, what made Mexican food popular in France, and why Americans turned to commercial pet food in place of table scraps for their dogs and cats. Food Chains goes behind the grocery shelves, explaining why Americans in the early twentieth century preferred to buy bread rather than make it and how Southerners learned to like self-serve shopping. Taken together, these essays demonstrate the value of a historical perspective on the modern food-provisioning system.
University of Pennsylvania Press 2009 296 pages

The bardo of waking life

Grossinger, Richard
"The bardo of waking life is a meditation on the Tibetan Buddhist bardo realm, which is viewed as the bridge between lives, the state people enter after death and before rebirth. This book examines waking life and its history and language as if it were a bardo state rather than ultimate reality. Bardo is at once prose poetry, intimate memoir, and anthropological inquiry"--Provided by publisher.
North Atlantic Books 2008 517 pages

Realms of memory: rethinking the French past

Pierre Nora,Lawrence D. Kritzman
Archives, monuments, celebrations: there are not merely the recollections of memory but also the foundations of history. Symbols, the third and final volume in Pierre Nora's monumental Realms of Memory , includes groundbreaking discussions of the emblems of France's past by some of the nation's most distinguished intellectuals. The seventeen essays in this book consider such diverse "sites" of memory as the figures of Joan D'Arc and Decartes, the national motto of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity", the tricolor flag and the French language itself. Pierre Nora's closing essay on commemoration provides a culminating overview of the series. Offering a new approach on history, culture, French studies and the studies of symbols, Realms of Memory reveals how the myriad meanings we attach to places and events constitute our sense of history. A monumental collective endevour by some of France's most distinguished intellectuals, Realms of Memory explores how and why certain places, events, and figures became a part of France's collective memory, and reveals the intricate connection between memory and history. Symbols , the third and final volume, is the culmination of the work begun in Conflicts and Divisions and Traditions .Pierre Nora inaugurates this final volume by acknowledging that the whole project of Realms of Memory is oriented around symbols, claiming "only a symbolic history can restore to France the unity and dynamism not recognized by either the man in the street or the academic historian." He goes on to distinguish between two very different types of symbols - imposed and constructed. Imposed symbols may be official state emblems like the tricolor flag or 'La Marsaillaise', or may be monuments like the Eiffel Tower - symbols imbued with a sense of history. COnstructes symbols are produced over the passage of time, by human effort, and by history itself.They include figures such as Joan d'Arc, Descartes, and the Gallic cock.Past I, Emblems, traces the development of four major national symbols from the time of the Revolution: the tricolor flag, the national anthem (La Marsaillaise), the motto Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" and Bastille Day. Far from having fixed identities, these representations of the French nations are shown to have undergone transformations. As French republics rose and regimes changed, the emblems of the French state - and the meanings accosiated with them - were also altered.Part II, Major Sites, focuses on those cities and structures that act as beacons of France to both Frenchman and foreigner. These essays range from the prehistory paintings in Lascaux - that cave which, though not originally French in any sense, has become the very symbol of France's immemorial national memory - to Verdun, the site of the terrible World War I battle, now a symbol of the nation's heaviest sacrifice for the "salvation of the fatehrland" and the most powerful image of French national unity.Identifications, the final section, explores the ways in which the French think of themselves. From the cock - that "rustic and quintessentially Gallic bird" - to the figures of Joan of Arc and Descartes, to the nation's twin hearts - Paris and the French language - the memory of the French people is explored.This final installment of Realms of Memory provides a major contribution not only to study the French nation and culture, but also to the study of symbols as cultural phenomena, offering, as Nora observes, "the possibility of revelation."
Columbia University Press 1996 651 pages

A year and a day: an experiment in essays

Lopate, Phillip
"A compelling record of one year in the life of a writer, including observations about movies, art, music, friendship, travel, and family. The essay is the most pluckily pedestrian and blithely transgressive of literary genres, the one that is most at large and in need, picking through the accumulated disjecta of daily life and personal and social history to take what it needs and remake it as it sees fit. It is, at its lively best, quite indifferent to the claims of style, fashion, theory, and respectability, provoking and inspiring through the pleasure of surprise. In 2016, Philip Lopate, who has been writing essays and thinking about the essay for decades now, turned his attention to one of the essay's offshoots, the blog, a form by that time already thick, as he knew, with virtual dust. Lopate committed to writing a weekly blog about, really, whatever over the course of a year, a quicker pace of delivery than he'd ever undertaken and one that carried the risk of all too regularly falling short. What emerged was A Year and a Day, a collection of forty-seven essays best characterized as a single essay a year in the making, a virtuosic (if never showy) demonstration of the essay's range and reach, meandering, looping back, pressing reset, forging on. Lopate's topics along the way include family, James Baldwin, a trip to China, Agnes Martin, Abbas Kiarastomi, the resistable rise of Donald Trump, death, desire, and the tribulations, small and large, of daily life. What results is at once a self-portrait, a picture of the times, and a splendid new elaboration of what the essay can be"--
New York Review Books 2023-10-10 205 pages

Family record

Modiano, Patrick
"A mix of autobiography and lucid invention, this highly personal work offers a deeply affecting exploration of the meaning of identity and pedigree. With his signature blend of candor, mystery, and bewitching elusiveness, Patrick Modiano weaves together a series of interlocking stories from his family history: his parents' courtship in occupied Paris; a sinister hunting trip with his father; a chance friendship with the deposed King Farouk; a wistful affair with the daughter of a nightclub singer; and the author's life as a new parent. Filled with a coterie of dubious characters - Nazi informants, collaborationist refugees, and black-market hustlers - Modiano's riveting vignettes capture the drama that consumed Paris during World War II and its aftermath. Written in tones ranging from tender nostalgia to the blunt cruelty of youth, this is a personal and revealing book that brings the enduring significance of a complicated past to life."--Publisher.
Yale University Press 2019-09-24 146 pages

Speaking freely: a memoir

Hentoff, Nat
"Continuing the story that began in his widely praised Boston Boy, Nat Hentoff in Speaking Freely guides us through more than forty years of his life in journalism, a career as various as his passions, and follows our social history from the civil rights and antiwar movements to the most incendiary battles (such as abortion) of the present day. Hentoff first evokes New York in the fifties, when he wrote for the jazz magazine Down Beat and came to know some of the most talented jazzmen of all time--Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, and Dizzy Gillespie, to name only a few. He looks back to his apprenticeship under George Seldes and I. F. Stone, two unyieldingly independent journalists whom he credits with charting his direction in the field. And he recounts his associations with a wide array of Americans, from Malcolm X, who was a friend, to Louis Farrakhan, who has labeled Hentoff "the Antichrist" ; from Adlai Stevenson to John Cardinal O'Connor; and from the "utterly singular" editor of The New Yorker, William Shawn, to uncelebrated heroes far afield from Manhattan and Washington. As a staff writer for the Village Voice and a syndicated columnist for the Washington Post, Hentoff has gained a reputation as one of the nation's most respected, uncompromising, and controversial writers on civil liberties and on the difficult issues and wide-ranging forms of injustice manifest in our age." -- Provided by Publisher.
Knopf 1997-09-16 303 pages

Still moving: recent Jewish migration in comparative perspective

Morton Weinfeld
"The aftermath of World War II was a period of massive Jewish migration. More than a million Jews came to settle in the new state of Israel; hundreds of thousands moved to North America, Australia, and France, while tens of thousands resettled themselves elsewhere in Europe and the world. Emigration was, in turn, paralled by large-scale movement among second-generation Jews from the great urban centers to the suburbs. Until recently it has seemed as though the Jewish people had, in the words of the Bible, reached a situation of rest and landed inheritance. However, there is considerable evidence that Jews are still moving: from the former Soviet Union, to and from Israel, and within nations where they have been long resident. Still Moving examines the causes and character of contemporary migration in Israel and throughout the Diaspora.The contributors to this volume adopt a cross-cultural comparative approach. Part 1 establishes the context of the new migration globally with specific concentration on its effects on the institutions of Israeli democracy. Part 2 surveys immigration to Israel in the 1990s with particular emphasis on the wave of Russian emigres since the fall of the Soviet Union. Internal migration from rural to urban centers is also explored. Migration to the Diaspora is covered in part 3. The Jewish identity of Soviet Jews is compared to their American and Canadian counterparts. Economic performance and problems of multigenerational families among emigres are also treated, as are the controversies surrounding politically motivated emigration from Israel. Part 4 focuses on the changing nature of the Diaspora and its relations with Israel. Beyond its grounding in Jewish culture and history, Still Moving frames questions that are central to understanding contemporary migration in general: Does immigration accelerate or retard the abilities of host countries to restructure economically? How does greater ethnic diversity affect the social and cultural life of cities? What factors help immigrants integrate into the wider community? Does immigration contribute to the creation of a marginalized underclass? Still Moving will be essential reading for historians, sociologists, Jewish studies specialists, and policy analysts" --
Routledge 2018-01-24 479 pages

Catastrophe and meaning: the Holocaust and the twentieth century

Moishe Postone,Eric L. Santner
How should we understand the relation of the Holocaust to the broader historical processes of the century just ended? How do we explain the bearing of the Holocaust on problems of representation, memory, memorialization, and historical practice? These are some of the questions explored by an esteemed group of scholars in Catastrophe and Meaning, the most significant multiauthored book on the Holocaust in over a decade. This collection features essays that consider the role of anti-Semitism in the recounting of the Holocaust; the place of the catastrophe in the narrative of twentieth-century history; the questions of agency and victimhood that the Holocaust inspires; the afterlife of trauma in literature written about the tragedy; and the gaps in remembrance and comprehension that normal historical works fail to notice. --
University of Chicago Press 2003-11-15 274 pages