"Timely and beautifully written, New England Beyond Criticism provides a passionate defense of the importance of the literature of New England to the American literary canon, and its impact on the development of spirituality, community, and culture in America. An exploration and defense of the prominence of New England's literary tradition within the canon of American literature. Traces the impact of the literature of New England on the development of spirituality, community, and culture in America. Includes in-depth studies of work from authors and poets such as William Bradford, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Henry David Thoreau, Susan Howe, and Marilynne Robinson. Examines the place and impression of New England literature in the nation's intellectual history and the lives of its readers"--

What sort of society could bind together Jacques Roubaud, Italo Calvino, Marcel Duchamp, and Raymond Queneau—and Daniel Levin Becker, a young American obsessed with language play? Only the Oulipo, the Paris-based experimental collective founded in 1960 and fated to become one of literature’s quirkiest movements. An international organization of writers, artists, and scientists who embrace formal and procedural constraints to achieve literature’s possibilities, the Oulipo (the French acronym stands for “workshop for potential literature”) is perhaps best known as the cradle of Georges Perec’s novel A Void, which does not contain the letter e. Drawn to the Oulipo’s mystique, Levin Becker secured a Fulbright grant to study the organization and traveled to Paris. He was eventually offered membership, becoming only the second American to be admitted to the group. From the perspective of a young initiate, the Oulipians and their projects are at once bizarre and utterly compelling. Levin Becker’s love for games, puzzles, and language play is infectious, calling to mind Elif Batuman’s delight in Russian literature in The Possessed. In recent years, the Oulipo has inspired the creation of numerous other collectives: the OuMuPo (a collective of DJs), the OuMaPo (marionette players), the OuBaPo (comic strip artists), the OuFlarfPo (poets who generate poetry with the aid of search engines), and a menagerie of other Ou-X-Pos (workshops for potential something ). Levin Becker discusses these and other intriguing developments in this history and personal appreciation of an iconic—and iconoclastic—group.

From before the days of Moses up through the 1960s, slavery was a fact of life in the Middle East. Pagans, Jews, Christians, and Muslims bought and sold at the slave markets for millennia, trading the human plunder of wars and slave raids that reached from the Russian steppes to the African jungles. But if the Middle East was one of the last regions to renounce slavery, how do we account for its--and especially Islam's--image of racial harmony? How did these long years of slavery affect racial relations? In Race and Slavery in the Middle East, Bernard Lewis explores these questions and others, examining the history of slavery in law, social thought, and practice over the last two millennia. With 24 rare and intriguing full-color illustrations, this fascinating study describes the Middle East's culture of slavery and the evolution of racial prejudice. Lewis demonstrates how nineteenth century Europeans mythologized the region as a racial utopia in debating American slavery. Islam, in fact, clearly teaches non-discrimination, but Lewis shows that prejudice often won out over pious sentiments, as he examines how Africans were treated, depicted, and thought of from antiquity to the twentieth century. "If my color were pink, women would love me/But the Lord has marred me with blackness," lamented a black slave poet in Arabia over a millennium ago--and Lewis deftly draws from these lines and others the nuances of racial relations over time. Islam, he finds, restricted enslavement and greatly improved the lot of slaves--who included, until the early twentieth century, some whites--while blacks occasionally rose to power and renown. But abuses ring throughout the written and visual record, from the horrors of capture to the castration and high mortality which, along with other causes, have left few blacks in many Middle Eastern lands, despite centuries of importing African slaves. Race and Slavery in the Middle East illuminates the legacy of slavery in the region where it lasted longest, from the days of warrior slaves and palace eunuchs and concubines to the final drive for abolition. Illustrated with outstanding reproductions of striking artwork, it casts a new light on this critical part of the world, and on the nature and interrelation of slavery and racial prejudice.

In the immediate aftermath of World War II, more than a quarter million Jewish survivors of the Holocaust lived among their defeated persecutors in the chaotic society of Allied-occupied Germany. Jews, Germans, and Allies draws upon the wealth of diary and memoir literature by the people who lived through postwar reconstruction to trace the conflicting ways Jews and Germans defined their own victimization and survival, comprehended the trauma of war and genocide, and struggled to rebuild their lives. In gripping and unforgettable detail, Atina Grossmann describes Berlin in the days following Germany's surrender--the mass rape of German women by the Red Army, the liberated slave laborers and homecoming soldiers, returning political exiles, Jews emerging from hiding, and ethnic German refugees fleeing the East. She chronicles the hunger, disease, and homelessness, the fraternization with Allied occupiers, and the complexities of navigating a world where the commonplace mingled with the horrific. Grossmann untangles the stories of Jewish survivors inside and outside the displaced-persons camps of the American zone as they built families and reconstructed identities while awaiting emigration to Palestine or the United States. She examines how Germans and Jews interacted and competed for Allied favor, benefits, and victim status, and how they sought to restore normality--in work, in their relationships, and in their everyday encounters. Jews, Germans, and Allies shows how Jews were integral participants in postwar Germany and bridges the divide that still exists today between German history and Jewish studies.

On Saturday, August 2, 1941, the Washington Post reported that President Franklin D. Roosevelt would depart the next day for a fishing vacation aboard his yacht, Potomac. By the morning of August 5, the Potomac was sailing toward the fishing waters off Cape Cod -- but the president was not on board. Having quietly disembarked in the middle of the night, the president, now joined by his top military advisors, was headed for Newfoundland, where the U.S. and British governments would meet in a secret summit to coordinate their military efforts, although the United States had yet to declare war on Germany. The British were appalled at the state of American preparedness, one British colonel remarking, "They have a long way to go before they can play any decisive part in the war." But ready or not, the United States would be catapulted into World War II within a matter of months. Alan Schom's superb histories and biographies have been lauded for their dramatic sweep, their focus on extraordinary personalities, and their refreshingly iconoclastic perspective. Schom begins this magisterial account of World War II in the Pacific by demonstrating an ironic paradox: on one hand, the American government and people were as inadequately prepared for war as any major power ever has been; on the other, the Japanese high command plunged headlong into the Pacific campaign despite clear evidence -- from their own analysts -- that Japan had too little oil and too feeble an economy to prevail against the United States. It was a war that should not have been fought. Schom recounts a tense saga of diplomatic maneuvering, strategic blunders, and pivotal successes played out in the halls of the White House, Downing Street, and the Imperial Palace, as well as on the seas and shores of the Pacific. Key figures in the war come vividly to life in a series of brilliant biographical sketches: Emperor Hirohito, a devotee of Western pursuits such as golf and jazz, who hungered to expand Japan's global reach; the destructively egotistical General Douglas MacArthur, whose splendid achievements in World War I stood in stark contrast to his incompetent leadership in the Philippines; Rear Admiral Kelly Turner, whose realism and tactical savvy played a crucial role in turning the tide of the war; and the cool-headed Admiral Tanaka Raizo, who repeatedly slipped through the Allied net, transporting troops and supplies to and from Guadalcanal. The Eagle and the Rising Sun embraces the broad strategic concerns of the war and the telling details and turning points of individual engagements. As Rear Admiral Thomas Marfiak, Ret., CEO and publisher of the U.S. Naval Institute, writes in the Foreword: "From time to time, we are privileged to be given extraordinary insights into the history of our age. Alan Schom has given us a tapestry, into which he has woven figures of immense proportions, yet he has not lost sight of their humanity. He writes ... in the grand tradition of Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August." Book jacket.

It should be no surprise that the various highly classified Operation Majestic 12 (or Majic-12 or MJ-12) documents have been attacked since their existence was first made public.Equally unsurprising is the fact that a number of phony or hoax or fraudulent MJ-12 documents have been released as well.But if the original documents, such as the Eisenhower Briefing Document of November 18, 1952, the Truman-Forrestal Memo of Sept. 24, 1947, and the Cutler Twining Memo of July 14, 1954 (found in July, 1985, in Box 189 of Entry 267 of Record Group 341 at the National Archives by Jaime Shandera and William Moore) are genuine, then the consequences are enormous: aliens are visiting Earth, the government has recovered at least one crashed saucer and several alien bodies,and a very significant group of outstanding American scientists and military leaders has collected, reviewed, evaluated, and kept secret all kinds of information about the visitors. Under such a scenario, mankind is NOT alone, and the government has covered up the biggest story of the millennium and perhaps history in general.Ten years after the 1984 receipt of a roll of exposed 35mm film by Jaime Shandera at his Burbank, California home, and his efforts with William Moore and Stanton Friedman to evaluate them, a new roll of film showed up in the mailbox of aviation and science writer (and longtime ufologist) Don Berliner.This contained many pages of SOM 1-01: Majestic 12 Group SPECIAL OPERATIONS MANUAL: "Extraterrestrial Entities and Technology, Recovery and Disposal." Ufologists and UFO buffs alike owe it to themselves to look seriously at the material gathered here by Friedman, and decide for themselves whether or not we need to continue pushing for Disclosure and the truth.

Sid Caesar was the star & guiding force behind Your Show of ShowsÓ & Caesar's Hour,Ó two of the most innovative programs in the Golden Age of TV, & the writers & stars of those shows -- including Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Imogene Coca, Nanette Fabray, Larry Gelbart, Howard Morris, Carl Reiner, & Neil Simon -- went on to create the plays, movies, & sitcoms that we now think of as classic American comedy. This is Caesar's artistic autobiography, an account of how these great routines were fashioned & performed, what he learned from his own life, & just what is funny. He takes us inside the famed Writers' Room, onto the stage, & into his life, to show us how some of the funniest moments in TV history came to be. Photos.

Sweet and Low is the amazing, bittersweet, hilarious story of an American family and its patriarch, a short-order cook named Ben Eisenstadt who, in the years after World War II, invented the sugar packet and Sweet'N Low, converting his Brooklyn cafeteria into a factory and amassing the great fortune that would destroy his family. It is also the story of immigrants to the New World, sugar, saccharine, obesity, and the health and diet craze, played out across countries and generations but also within the life of a single family, as the fortune and the factory passed from generation to generation. The author, Rich Cohen, a grandson (disinherited, and thus set free, along with his mother and siblings), has sought the truth of this rancorous, colorful history, mining thousands of pages of court documents accumulated in the long and sometimes corrupt life of the factor, and conducting interviews with members of his extended family. Along the way, the forty-year family battle over the fortune moves into its titanic phase, with the money and legacy up for grabs. Sweet and Low is the story of this struggle, a strange comic farce of machinations and double dealings, and of an extraordinary family and its fight for the American dream.

PETER BERGER, renowned sociologist and social critic, theologian and novelist, here brings his many gifts to bear on the endlessly interesting, if also painful, predicament of living in the modern world. In discussions ranging all the way from such private experiences as marriage and psychoanalysis to such public issues as the secularization of religion, the corruptions of pornography, or the growing indifference to murder, he brilliantly demonstrates how that predicament has grown out of the modern disbelief in God and the weakening of the institutions of community. The modernity which constitutes the central preoccupation of this book raises questions of both a very general and a very particular kind: "How," in Peter Berger's own words, "can one understand that peculiar reality we know as modern society?" Beyond understanding it, how can one actually engage in meaningful political action in its American version? And how does modernity constrain or condition a man's religious quest? The author's answers, based on a sure sense of history combined with an infinitely patient yet toughminded grasp of the way societies actually work, bring new illumination to virtually every page. For those who have not accepted Peter Berger's views about the nature of our present predicament as well as for those who have-indeed, for everyone concerned with understanding himself as a modern person and as a citizen of a modern state-Facing Up to Modernity is an experience in self- discovery

Race and Mixed Race is an exploration of the philosophical, social, and historical problems related to racial identity - from the perspectives of individuals of "pure" and mixed race. Tracing the history of racial designations in the United States, Naomi Zack uses philosophical methods to criticize the logic of American racial categories. She discusses why racial identity is a matter of importance; examines the treatment of mixed race in law, society, and literature; and addresses philosophical questions related to the designation of someone as belonging to a given race. In this first philosophical challenge to accepted racial classifications in the United States, Zack argues that black and white designations are themselves racist because the concept of race does not have an adequate scientific foundation. The "one drop" rule, which originally was a rationalization for slavery, persists to this day despite the fact that there have never been "pure" races and that most American blacks have "white" genes. Challenging the equation that black plus white always results in black, the author explores the existential problems of mixed race identity. The stringent bi-racial system in this country does not recognize mixed racial heritage, which generates a special racial alienation for many Americans. Discussing the possibility of eliminating all racial identities for their lack of scientific or moral underpinning, Zack analyzes American racial words to reveal their metaphorical nature. Ironically suggesting the inclusion of "gray" into the vocabulary as a designation for mixed black and white race, she concludes that any racial identity, based as it must be on false and unjust racial identification, is an expression of bad faith.

The so-called Israel lobby has been widely denounced and demonized in the global media, but as Mitchell Bard reveals, its power pales in comparison to the decades-long corruption of American interests by Arab governments. Indeed, for more than seventy years, U.S. policy in the Middle East has been shaped not by the power of a nefarious “Israel lobby” but by a misguided emphasis on pleasing and placating the Arab states. This outlook has ensured that the United States pays disproportionate attention to their demands, assisting Arab countries—all of them dictatorial regimes with abysmal human rights records—that do not share our values and often work to subvert our interests. In this authoritative history, Bard provides a timely and valuable corrective to the unbalanced view of Middle East affairs that is so widely promoted today. Bard shows that the Arab Lobby’s goals include feeding America’s oil addiction, obtaining more sophisticated weaponry, and weakening our alliance with a democratic Israel. It also seeks to influence public opinion through a well-funded publicity campaign and by injecting distorted views of the Middle East into high school and college textbooks. Bard’s valuable book brings a much-needed balance to a debate fraught with ignorance and propaganda.

A comprehensive look at Louise Nevelson's career as a pioneering sculptor Louise Nevelson (1900-1988) was a towering figure in postwar American art, exerting great influence with her monumental installations, innovative sculptures made of found objects, and celebrated public artworks. The Sculpture of Louise Nevelson focuses on all phases of the artist's remarkable ascent to the top of the art world, from her groundbreaking works of the 1940s to complex pieces completed in the late 1980s. The most extensive study of Nevelson to be published in over 20 years, this beautifully illustrated book also demonstrates how Nevelson's flamboyant style and carefully cultivated persona enhanced her reputation as an artist of the first rank. Essays by distinguished scholars examine a wide variety of important issues and themes throughout Nevelson's career, including the role of monochromatic color in her painted wooden sculpture; the art-historical context of her work; her acclaimed large-scale commissioned artworks, which established her as a central figure in the public art revival of the late 1960s; and her "self-fashioning" as a celebrated artist, particularly her origins as a Ukrainian-born Jewish immigrant to the United States. An illustrated chronology and exhibition history accompany the text. Published in conjunction with the first major exhibition of Nevelson's work in America since 1980, this book provides essential information on and insights into the study of a revolutionary 20th-century artist. Published in association with The Jewish Museum Exhibition Schedule: The Jewish Museum, New York (May 5 - September 16, 2007) de Young, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (October 27, 2007 - January 13, 2008)

Larry Kramer has been described by Susan Sontag as "one of America's most valuable troublemakers." As Frank Rich writes in his Foreword to this new collection of writings for the screen and stage, "his plays are almost journalistic in their observation of the fine-grained documentary details of life ... that may well prove timeless." The title work, the Oscar-nominated screenplay for Women in Love, is a movie "as sensuous as anything you've probably ever seen on film" (The New York Times). The screenplay is accompanied by Kramer's reflections on the history of the production, sure to be of interest to any student of film. This volume also includes several early plays, Sissies' Scrapbook, A Minor Dark Age, and the political farce Just Say No, illuminating the development of one of our most important literary figures. "Since his screenplay for Women in Love, Kramer has been a prophet of psychic health and catastrophe among us." -- from The American Academy of Arts and Letters citation

Alexis de Tocqueville was among the first foreigners to recognize and trumpet the grandness of the American project. His two-volume classic, Democracy in America , published in 1835, offered not only a vivid account of the still young nation but famously predicted what the nation would become, and firmly established his place in U.S. history. Yet in his own time, Tocqueville had little evidence for the truth of his ideas. Introspective, sickly, prone to self-doubt, he was a most unlikely visionary. In wry, elegant prose, Joseph Epstein, America's most versatile essayist, offers an engaging and altogether human portrait of the Frenchman who would become an American icon.

"The Speed of Dark will resonate with musicians, those interested in art, music and history, and those who seek to carve their own path in a world filled with high expectations and seemingly unlimited resources." (Sel Kardan, President, Colburn School of Performing Arts, LA)"The clear and elegant prose on the theme of collecting reveals a dedication and self-understanding that is rare." (Michael Hall, PhD, Curator of the Rothschild family collections, Exbury Estate, Hampshire, GB)"Piatigorsky's memoir will provide particular interest to students, scholars, and fellow collectors knowledgeable in the creative traditions of Native North American artists." (Bernadette Driscoll Engelstad, Independent Curator, Inuit Art)"Piatigorsky's memoir demonstrates that artistry can be found in science." (Joseph Horwitz, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Ophthalmology/Biophysics, Jules Stein Eye Institute, UCLA)"Piatigorsky's unique story will receive a wide audience: professional and lay scientists, art collectors, musicians, historians, writers and those who have struggled to find their identity." (Hamid Shams, BBP Films Producer and Cinematographer)"This memoir is not just worth reading, it is worth remembering!" (James Mathews, Author of Last Known Position)"This fascinating account of his journey becomes a meditation on art, wonder, and creativity, of bucking the status quo and following one's heart. " (Barbara Esstman, Author of The Other Anna, Night Ride Home, and A More Perfect Union)

There is absolutely nothing in the American experience comparable to basic training or boot camp. If you haven't been through it, you can't understand it. But if you've been through it, you never forget it. No matter where they live, all American fighting men and women have one thing in common: They have survived basic military training. They've crawled through the swamps on Parris Island, stood in the frigid cold guarding a Dumpster at Great Lakes, struggled to complete fifteen bars on the horizontal ladder to get to the chow hall at Ft. Jackson, fought desperately to stay awake after long days without sleep at Lackland. They were shaved and screamed at, they barely ate, they marched a hundred miles, and they accomplished things they never would have dreamed were possible. They made the epic journey from civilian to soldier in eight weeks... and gained a lifetime of memories in the process. If you've done it, you will recognize the Drill Instructors, the marching chants, the movie segments, the proper way to make a hospital corner, the jokes, the camaraderie and the shared feeling of triumph. And those who haven't done it—yet—will understand and appreciate this life-changing experience. Basic is the story of that training. Col. Jack Jacobs and David Fisher tell the funny, sad, dramatic, poignant, and sometimes crazy history of how America has trained its military, told through the indelible memories of those who remember the experiences as if they happened yesterday.

In his acclaimed novels of alternate history, Harry Turtledove has scrutinized the twisted soul of the twentieth century, from the forces that set World War I in motion to the rise of fascism in the decades that followed. Now, this masterly storyteller turns his eyes to the aftermath of World War II and asks: In an era of nuclear posturing, what if the Cold War had suddenly turned hot? Bombs Away begins with President Harry Truman in desperate consultation with General Douglas MacArthur, whose control of the ground war in Korea has slipped disastrously away. MacArthur recognizes a stark reality: The U.S. military has been cut to the bone after victory over the Nazis--while China and the USSR have built up their forces. The only way to stop the Communist surge into the Korean Peninsula and save thousands of American lives is through a nuclear attack. MacArthur advocates a strike on Chinese targets in Manchuria. In actual history, Truman rejected his general's advice; here, he does not. The miscalculation turns into a disaster when Truman fails to foresee Russia's reaction. Almost instantly, Stalin strikes U.S. allies in Europe and Great Britain. As the shock waves settle, the two superpowers are caught in a horrifying face-off. Will they attack each other directly with nuclear weapons? What countries will be caught in between? The fateful global drama plays out through the experiences of ordinary people--from a British barmaid to a Ukrainian war veteran to a desperate American soldier alone behind enemy lines in Korea. For them, as well as Truman, Mao, and Stalin, the whole world has become a battleground. Strategic strikes lead to massive movements of ground troops. Cities are destroyed, economies ravaged. And on a planet under siege, the sounds and sights of nuclear bombs become a grim harbinger of a new reality: the struggle to survive man's greatest madness. Praise for Bombs Away "A fascinating and compelling story of real people caught in forces beyond their control . . . [Harry Turtledove is] the unrivaled monarch of alternate history." -- Analog "Turtledove is an undisputed centerpiece of the alternate-history genre, and now, to his already grand display, he's adding the ambitious tale of a WWIII that could have happened." -- Booklist "This is Turtledove at his best." --SFRevu "Alternate-world warrior extraordinaire Turtledove delivers the opening barrage of a new speculative conflict." -- Kirkus Reviews

Captures seven hit-making decades during the American recording industry's glittering, freewheeling years. Tommy LiPuma was one of America's most successful record producers whose work with seminal artists like Miles Davis, Diana Krall, Barbra Streisand, Rickie Lee Jones, George Benson, and Willie Nelson went on to sell over seventy-five million records. It is also a picaresque journey that opens with the murder of a man on a dirt path in Sicily and concludes with five trips up the Grammy red carpet. The Ballad of Tommy LiPuma is real-life Horatio Alger adventure storied with bootleggers, gangsters, artists, hipsters, set in a revolutionary time in music history that changed popular culture around the world. Finally, it's a deeply personal account of how music saved one man's life, and how he went on to affect the lives of millions of others. "Tommy was my best friend, my creative partner, my mentor, my confidant, and my producer for twenty-four years. As time goes on, I realize just how special he was."--Diana Krall "Tommy was a fantastic producer. He always had a great sense of humour . . . he would sit in the studio with us musicians and make every session a complete joy."--Paul McCartney "Tommy was always looking for ways to bring authentic jazz and blues to a larger audience."--Donald Fagen "He leaves a great legacy of great music that's going to stand the test of time . . . . I miss him every day."--Al Schmitt "Tommy was a great producer and a real friend."--Willie Nelson I don't think that it's been noticed enough what he's done. He's been the most successfulperson, commercially, in the history of jazz."--Randy Newman

Arthur Schwartz knows how Jewish food warms the heart and delights the soul, whether it's talking about it, shopping for it, cooking it, or, above all, eating it. Jewish Home Cooking presents authentic yet contemporary versions of traditional Ashkenazi foods-rugulach, matzoh brei, challah, brisket, and even challenging classics like kreplach (dumplings) and gefilte fish-that are approachable to make and revelatory to eat. Chapters on appetizers, soups, dairy (meatless) and meat entrees, Passover meals, breads, and desserts are filled with lore about individual dishes and the people who nurtured them in America. Light-filled food and location photographs of delis, butcher shops, and specialty grocery stores paint a vibrant picture of America's touchstone Jewish food culture. The book includes stories, culinary history, and nearly 100 recipes for Jewish home cooking from the heart of American Jewish culture, New York City. It was written by one of the country's foremost experts on traditional and contemporary Jewish food, cooking, and culinary culture. - Publisher.

Lauded for its contribution to the theory and conceptualization of the field of women's history and for its sensitivity to the differences of class, ethnicity, race, and culture among women, The Majority Finds Its Past became a classic volume in wo