"By 1940 the big band sound had grown stale, and jazz musicians began to search out new sounds and styles. At the Harlem nightclub Minton's Playhouse, a small group of musicians -- John Birks, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Beau Hawkins, and Thelonious Monk, among sounding blend of flatted fifths, unfamiliar chord lines, and accelerated offbeat rhythms. They were joined on 52nd Street by alto saxist Charles Bird Parker, and bop -- or bebop, as it was first called, from the triplet figure buh-BE-bop -- was born.Bop was aggressive, provocative, and belligerent, Its proponents wore gears and berets and refereed to the Dixieland and New Orleans diehards as moldy figs who in tureen labelled the new jazz the modern complex chord, and a new reperatory into jazz, and by the end of the forties the moldy figs were forced to concede that bop was indeed the harbinger of a new direction in American jazz.Critic Leonard Feather was one of the earliest and most persistent champions of bop. It was he who persuaded RCA Victor that the new music was worth recording. His Inside Jazz is a full-length account of its origins and development and the personalities of the musicians who created it. Numerous photographs and anecdotes bring this innovative era in jazz history to life once more."--

Review “Leo Panitch and Colin Leys have written a book whose significance extends far beyond the specific case of the British Labour Party.”—Critical Sociology “... a brilliant refutation of New Labour’s version of history. With an impressive range of evidence, careful analysis and a theoretical framework, [Panitch and Leys] have provided a highly readable and committed book ... recommended for everyone who really wants to understand the politics and recent history of the Labour Party.”—Contemporary Politics “... a rich and immensely enjoyable narrative, full of detail about the trajectory taken by Labour over the last quarter-century.”—Times Literary Supplement Product Description This trenchant account of the last twenty-five years of the British Labour Party argues that Tony Blair’s modernizing tendency was profoundly mistaken in asserting that the only alternative to traditional social democracy and narrow parliamentarianism was an acceptance of neo-liberalism. In blaming the Labour left, rather than the social-democratic right for the party’s years in the electoral wilderness, the modernizers rejected the creativity and energy which the party’s New Left had mobilized, and without which their own professed aim of democratic renewal was unlikely to be realized. About the Author Colin Leys is Emeritus Professor of Political Studies at Queen’s University, Canada. His previous books include Politics in Britain, The Rise and Fall of Development Theory and, with Leo Panitch, The End of Parliamentary Socialism. Leo Panitch is Canada Research Chair in Comparative Political Economy and Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science at York University. Editor of The Socialist Register for 25 years, his many books include Working Class Politics in Crisis, A Different Kind of State, The End of Parliamentary Socialism, and American Empire and The Political Economy of Global Finance.

Although organ transplantation is the preeminent medical miracle of the last quarter of a century, Many Sleepless Nights is the first book to go beyond the headlines and describe the patients who have embraced this last chance to hold on to life, the intricate medical procedures that can save them, the surgeons and nurses who work in this emotionally charged world, and the ethics which complicate this miracle high-tech therapy. Lee Gutkind was granted unconditional access to the world's largest transplant center - the University of Pittsburgh's Presbyterian-University and Children's hospitals, where there is an organ transplant every eight hours, 365 days per year. For four years he immersed himself in the frantic night-and-day world of transplantation, living side by side with transplant candidates and recipients, jetting though the night with organ procurement teams, monitoring patients with surgeons and nurses, observing in the operating room, participating in the ethical and psychosocial evaluations of prospective patients which help to determine who will receive scarce organs. During his four years at Presbyterian and Children's Hospitals, Gutkind established close relationships with many patients, and his portrayal of them, living and sometimes dying under unbelievable stress, is a moving and dramatic statement about the capacity of human beings to endure. Many Sleepless Nights also outlines the history of organ transplantation and tells the story of the large and complex medical teams behind the operation. It captures the tension of the search for viable organs; the pressure decisions about which patients, among many, will receive them; and the surgery itself.Its vivid portrayal of the transplant pioneer Thomas Starzl - a man obsessed with saving lives - shows how a major innovator in American medicine functions during days and nights of extreme pressure.

Ethics described Judith Shklar as "a towering presence" at Harvard for decades, an "influential teacher and mentor to many of the best known political theorists working today in the United States." One of this century's most important liberal scholars, she is remembered for her "sharp intellect, forceful personality, and passionate intellectual honesty and curiosity." Political Thought and Political Thinkers makes startlingly clear her role in the reinvigoration of liberal theory that has been taking place over the last two decades. This second volume of Shklar's work—which follows the 1997 publication of Redeeming American Political Thought —brings together heretofore uncollected (and several unpublished) essays on a number of themes, including the place of the intellect in the modern political world and the dangers of identity politics. While many of these essays have been previously published, they remain far from accessible. In collecting the work scattered over the past forty years in journals and other publications, noted political theorist Stanley Hoffmann provides an essential guide to Shklar's thought, complemented by George Kateb's comprehensive introduction to her work. Hoffmann's selection, which includes Shklar's classic essay "The Liberalism of Fear," showcases her distinctive defense of liberalism and follows her explorations in this history of moral and political thought as she engages with Bergson, Arendt, and Rousseau. Political Thought and Political Thinkers displays one of the century's most compelling and flexible intellects in action and is the definitive collection of her work on European history and thinkers. "Shklar's legacy is an inspiring example of liberal thought at its arresting best, unflinchingly courageous and unmoved by the dreary and unmeaning harmonies conjured up by theories of justice and rights."—John Gray, Times Literary Supplement Judith N. Shklar (1928-1992) was Cowles Professor of Government at Harvard University and the author of nine books in political theory.

"This study is the first attempt to compare six major race riots that occurred in the three largest American urban areas during the course of the twentieth century: in Chicago in 1919 and 1968; in New York in 1935/1943 and 1964; and in Los Angeles in 1965 and 1992. Race, Space, and Riots in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles weaves together detailed narratives of each riot, placing them in their changing historical contexts and showing how urban space, political regimes, and economic conditions - not simply an abstract "race conflict"--Have structured the nature and extent of urban rebellions. Building on her previous comparative history of these three cities, Janet Abu-Lughod draws upon archival research, primary sources, case studies, and personal observations to reconstruct events - especially for the 1964 Harlem-Bedford Stuyvesant uprising and Chicago's 1968 riots where no documented studies are available. By focusing on the similarities and differences in each city, identifying the unique and persisting issues, and evaluating the ways political leaders, law enforcement, and the local political culture have either defused or exacerbated urban violence, this book points the way toward alleviating long-standing ethnic and racial tensions." "Race, Space, and Riots In Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles offers a deeper understanding of past - and future - urban race relations while emphasizing that until persistent racial and economic inequalities are meaningfully resolved, the tensions leading to racial violence will continue to exist in America's cities and betray our professed democratic values"--OCLC

Insightful, prescient and often funny, The Border explores what it means to be Canadian and what Canada means to the giant to our south. If good fences make good neighbours, do we have the sort of fence that will allow us to maintain neighbourly relations with the world’s only superpower? In The Border , well-known political scientist and journalist James Laxer explores this question by taking the reader on a compelling 5000-mile journey into culture, politics, history, and the future of Canadian sovereignty. Long ignored (or celebrated) as “the world’s longest undefended border,” the line between us and the US is now a stress point. The attacks on the World Trade Center announced to the world that North America is no longer a quiet neighbourhood and made our relationship with the US one of the most pressing questions facing Canadians. The porousness of the border is sure to be more problematic as the world becomes more troubled. Canadian officials complain of American pornography, drugs, untaxed cigarettes and, especially, guns moving northwards. For their part, the FBI and US Customs Service blame Canada for the infiltration of Chinese gangs smuggling immigrants and, more urgently, third-world terrorist cells based north of the border. Drawing deeply from history and anecdote, Laxer shows that for all our neighbourly good will, the Canada-US border has been contentious since the American War of Independence. In the mid-1800s the Americans tried to seize the west coast up to the 54th parallel. On the other hand, until 1931 the Canadian Army’s “Defence Scheme Number One” was to launch a surprise attack on the US with Mexico and Japan as allies. But beyond the fraught politics of the border, Laxer discovers another legacy as well. Travelling the country from Campobello island in the east to Richmond BC in the west all the way up to the Alaska panhandle in the north, Laxer meets people who live within a stone’s throw of the foreigners on the other side, and who share with him tales of friendship and rivalry, smuggling and trade that have shaped the character of their communities.

"History teacher Horace Edgecomb finds himself teaching the daughter of a leading "American Civil War denier" and must confront an organization determined to disprove the occurrence of the Civil War in this satire of historical revisionism"--Publisher.

October 15, 1951 marks the birthday of one of the key episodes in 20th century social history: the first synthesis of a steroid oral contraceptive in a small laboratory in Mexico City - an event that triggered the development of the Pill. Carl Djerassi has been honoured worldwide for that accomplishment, which ultimately changed the life of women and the nature of human reproduction in ways that were not foreseeable. On the 50th anniversary of this pivotal event, Djerassi weaves a compelling personal narrative full of self-reflection and occasional humour on the impact this invention has had on the world at large and on him personally. He credits the Pill with radically altering his academic career at Stanford University to become one of the few American chemists writing novels and plays. This Man's Pill presents a forcefully revisionist account of the early history of the Pill, debunking many of the journalistic and romantic accounts of its scientific origin. Djerassi does not shrink from exploring why we have no Pill for men or why Japan only approved the Pill in 1999 (together with Viagra). Emphasizing that development of the Pill occurred during the post-War period of technological euphoria, he believes that it could not be repeated in today's climate. Would the sexual revolution of the 1960s or the impending separation of sex ("in bed") and fertilization ("under the microscope") still have happened? This Man's Pill answers such questions while providing a uniquely authoritative account of a discovery that changed the world.

A personal and insightful call to action and a much-needed book about one of the most important bilateral relationships in the world—the relationship between Canada and the US—and why diplomacy matters now more than ever before. All over the world, diplomacy is under threat. Diplomats used to handle sensitive international negotiations, but increasingly, incendiary Tweets and bombastic public statements are posing a threat to foreign relations. In The Art of Diplomacy , the former US ambassador to Canada, Bruce Heyman, and his partner, Vicki Heyman, spell out why diplomacy and diplomats matter, especially in today’s turbulent times. This dynamic power couple arrived in Canada intent on representing American interests, but they quickly learned that to do so meant representing the shared interests of all citizens—no matter what side of the 49th parallel they happened to live on. Bruce and Vicki narrate their three years in Canada spent journeying across the country and meeting Canadians from all walks of life—including Supreme Court justices, prime ministers, fishermen, farmers, artists, and entrepreneurs. They tell the behind-the-scenes stories of how their team helped bring Obama to Canada and Trudeau to the US. They also reveal the importance of creating cultural and artistic exchange between Canada and the US, of promoting economic and trade interests, and overall, of making a lasting positive impact on one of the most important relationships in the free world today. This politically poignant and heartfelt memoir is a call to action, a reminder that only by working together to protect our shared values—the environment, social justice and human rights—can nations build a better world for all. As their long-time friend and colleague President Obama once said, “The world needs more Canada.” At this key moment in history, when opposing nationalist and populist agendas threaten to divide us, The Art of Diplomacy reminds us to keep calm, to work together and to carry on.

Now available in paperback for the first time, with a new introduction, the poignant and insightful memoir from Yossi Klein Halevi, the award-winning journalist and author of the acclaimed Like Dreamers—a coming-of-age story about a traumatic family history, radical politics, and spiritual transformation that speaks to a new generation struggling to understand what it means to be Jewish in America. The child of a Holocaust survivor, Yossi Klein Halevi grew up in 1960s Brooklyn perceiving reality through the lens of his family’s brutal past. Increasingly identifying with their history of suffering, he regarded the non-Jewish world with fear and loathing. Determined to take action—and seek retribution—he became a disciple of the late rabbi Meir Kahane and a member of the radical fringe of the American Jewish community. In this wry and moving account, Halevi explores the deep-rooted anger of his adolescence and early adulthood that fueled his increasingly aggressive activism. He reveals how he started to question his beliefs—and his self-inflicted suffering as a hostage of history—and see the world from his own clear perspective. As a journalist and author, Halevi has dedicated himself to fostering interfaith reconciliation. Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist explains how such a transformation can happen—giving hope that peaceful coexistence between faiths is possible.

From the pages of Love & Rockets, an intimate epic from south of the border. For the first time ever, Fantagraphics is proud to present a single-volume collection of Gilbert Hernandez's "Heartbreak Soup" stories from Love & Rockets, which along with RAW magazine defined the modern literary comics movement of the post-underground generation. This massive volume collects every "Heartbreak Soup" story from 1993 to 2002 in one 500-page deluxe hardcover edition, presenting the epic for the first time as the single novel it was always intended to be. Palomar is the mythical Central American town where the "Heartbreak Soup" stories take place. The stories weave in and out of the town's entire population, crafting an intricate tapestry of Latin American experience. Hernandez's densely plotted and deeply imagined tales are often compared with magic realist authors like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende (House of the Spirits). His depictions of women and Mexican-American experience have been universally lauded as the best examples the artform has to offer. Luba, the guiding spirit of Palomar since the outset, has been hailed by The Nation, Rolling Stone, and Time magazine as one of the great characters of contemporary American fiction. Hernandez's work, in addition to the obvious magic realist comparisons, shares an affinity with other Latin American and Spanish writer/artists, like Frida Kahlo, Federico Garcia Lorca and Pablo Picasso, all of whom applied a surrealist eye to what they saw and experienced. Palomar follows the lives of its residents from Luba's arrival in the town to her exit, twenty years later. Included are such classic tales as "Sopa de Gran Pena," "Ecce Homo," "An American in Palomar," "Human Diastrophism," and "Farewell, Mi Palomar." Palomar presents one of the richest accomplishments in the history of the artform in its ideal format for the first time, making it a must-have for longtime Love & Rockets fans and new readers alike. 500 pages b/w illustrations

The story of a great airline is the story of people, and nowhere is this more evident than at American Airlines.Thus we meet giants of the industry such as C. R. Smith, the bookkeeper from an impoverished family who, more than any man, made American the colossus it is today, and Robert Lloyd Crandall, who in 1980 took over the presidency of the airline during one of its most troubled times and brought it through flying higher than ever. But we also meet pilots, mechanics, marketing experts, and scores of middle-management executives — all of whom Robert Serling brings alive with vivacity.Eagle is the definitive, action-filled history of the airline that became one of the world’s recognized leaders in air transport—a company of both courage and controversy. It tells the story of the growth of American Airlines, from a hodgepodge of carriers operating biplanes over routes that went virtually nowhere, into a giant admired by even its fiercest competitors.Praise for Robert ‘Aviation buffs will revel in this thoroughgoing chronicle’ – Kirkus‘High level of suspense and excitement’ - De Moines Sunday Register‘Serling has spun another winner’ – Publisher’s Weekly‘…keeps you guessing til the end’ - Arizona Daily StarRobert J. Serling (1918-2010) was aviation editor of United Press International and won the annual TWA Best Aviation News Reporting Award for four years running.

"The Seagram building rises over New York's Park Avenue, seeming to float above the street with perfect lines of bronze and glass. Considered one of the greatest icons of twentieth-century architecture, the building was commissioned by Samuel Bronfman, founder of the Canadian distillery dynasty Seagram. Bronfman's daughter Phyllis Lambert was twenty-seven years old when she took over the search for an architect and chose Mies van der Rohe (18861969), a pioneering modern master of what he termed "skin and bones" architecture. Mies, who designed the elegant, deceptively simple thirty-eight-story tower along with Philip Johnson (19062005), emphasized the beauty of structure and fine materials, and set the building back from the avenue, creating an urban oasis with the building's plaza. Through her choice, Lambert established her role as a leading architectural patron and singlehandedly changed the face of American urban architecture. Building Seagram is a comprehensive personal and scholarly history of a major building and its architectural, cultural, and urban legacies. Lambert makes use of previously unpublished personal archives, company correspondence, and photographs to tell an insider's view of the debates, resolutions, and unknown dramas of the building's construction, as well as its crucial role in the history of modern art and architectural culture."--Publisher description.

Emmanuel Levinas is well known to students of twentieth-century continental philosophy, especially French philosophy. But he is largely unknown within the circles of Anglo- American philosophy. In Discovering Levinas, Michael L. Morgan shows how this thinker faces in novel and provocative ways central philosophical problems of twentieth-century philosophy and religious thought. He tackles this task by placing Levinas in conversation with philosophers such as Donald Davidson, Stanley Cavell, John McDowell, Onora O'Neill, Charles Taylor, and Cora Diamond. He also seeks to understand Levinas within philosophical, religious, and political developments in the history of twentieth-century intellectual culture. Morgan demystifies Levinas by examining his unfamiliar and surprising vocabulary, interpreting texts with an eye to clarity, and arguing that Levinas can be understood as a philosopher of the everyday. Morgan also shows that Levinas's ethics is not morally and politically irrelevant nor is it excessively narrow and demanding in unacceptable ways. Neither glib dismissal nor fawning acceptance, this book provides a sympathetic reading that can form a foundation for a responsible critique.

Over the course of more than six decades as an author, journalist, and professor, Max Lerner studied and assessed many presidents, yet Thomas Jefferson received his most sustained attention. To Lerner, Jefferson came closest in the American context to Plato's "philosopher-king," the ideal thinker and leader. Because of his keen sense of Jefferson's virtues and his unique place in United States history, Lerner began work on a book about Jefferson in 1957, rewriting it several times throughout his life, always with the intention of introducing general readers to "a thinker and public figure of enduring pertinence." In this volume, Lerner uses the facts of Jefferson's life and work as the springboard to insightful analysis and informed assessment. In considering Jefferson, Lerner combines biographical information, historical background, and analytical commentary. The result is a biographical-interpretive volume, a primer about Jefferson that not only describes his accomplishments, but discusses his problems and failures. As political figures have declined in esteem in recent decades, the media has probed deeper into previously private lives. Historians, biographers, and others have revealed personal details about deceased prominent figures. Two centuries after he helped create America, Jefferson remains a figure of enduring fascination within academic circles and beyond. Max Lerner helps explain and clarify not only this unending fascination, but the timeless relevance of the nation's devoutly democratic yet singularly authentic "philosopher-king."

"A few years ago," Stewart O'Nan, editor of The Vietnam Reader, writes in his introduction, "when I began teaching the American literature of the Vietnam War, I tried to find an anthology my students could use.... But as I searched through libraries and catalogues, new- and used-book shops, I discovered there wasn't one." So O'Nan set out to create one himself. What began as course material has grown into a remarkable collection of writing that will appeal to a broad audience of readers interested in the Vietnam experience. O'Nan includes a little bit of everything--fiction and nonfiction from acclaimed writers such as Tim O'Brien, Louise Erdrich, Michael Herr, and David Halberstam; poetry and drama by Michael Casey and David Rabe; even songs such as Barry Sadler's "The Ballad of the Green Berets" and Credence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son." There are also essays on the major Vietnam films, from The Deer Hunter to Full Metal Jacket, and a smattering of famous photographs from the war. What makes this collection extraordinary is not just the quality of the writing it contains but also the breadth of attitudes O'Nan represents. For instance, he juxtaposes an excerpt from Ron Kovic's antiwar memoir, Born of the Fourth of July with James Webb's gung-ho paean to fighting the good fight in Fields of Fire. Chapters of Tim O'Brien's hallucinatory fiction Going After Cacciato resonate with excerpts from his earlier memoir If I D ie in a Combat Zone as well the journalism of Michael Herr (Dispatches) and Philip Caputo (A Rumor of War). Creating sections such as "Early Work," "The Oral History Boom," "Memoirs," "Homecoming," and more, O'Nan seeks to convey as much of the war experience from as many different perspectives as possible. Anyone interested in history and in fine writing will find The Vietnam Reader worthy reading. --Alix Wilber

The rare book dealers who delighted readers with the history of their bookselling days in "Old Books, Rare Friends" now offer the other side of their story -- an intimate look at the joys of a relationship that has lasted more than half a century. When their friendship and business partnership began in the 1940s, Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern were pioneers in a man's world. Now approaching their nineties, the duo, who -- among their many discoveries -- unearthed Louisa May Alcott's pseudonymous blood-and-thunder stories, remains a vibrant institution in the rare book trade, even as the Internet changes their field -- and their community -- forever. After publishing "Old Books, Rare Friends," Rostenberg and Stern received a flood of fan mail asking about their personal lives, and they have responded with poignant honesty and the warmth for which they are famous, as they reflect on their lives and their remarkable partnership. "Bookends" recounts their fascinating histories: family backgrounds, business adventures, the men they did not marry, and their approach to the bittersweet trials of aging. More than just a dual memoir, "Bookends" is also a chronicle of the cultural changes of twentieth-century American life and a loving farewell to the golden age of book collecting. Filled with wisdom and humor, this volume is a tribute to Rostenberg and Stern's passion for the written word -- and for life itself. Catching us off guard with their candor, they offer their insights regarding their business, their way of life, and their worldview. Above all, they present the story of a special relationship. At a time when people find it increasingly difficult to connect, here wehave the seamless story of a shared life. It is the unique product of an earlier time, yet it is a timeless reflection on the very nature of friendship. Though their fantastic partnership is un-reproducible, the ideal they have established, for the integration of one life so completely with another, contains lessons for all of us. Without husband or children they created a loving home when this was uncharted territory for women. They nurtured a business and life partnership that has lasted more than half a century and has only gotten stronger with time. When the passing years began to claim one's hearing and the other's sight, they became each other's eyes and ears. A meditation on aging and togetherness, this book is also the narrative of two pioneering single, Jewish women making their way in tandem through a world largely organized to keep them in their place. It is a gentle, wise story, told in their inimitable style, sparse, unadorned, and honest. Their affirmations supersede their uncertainties. As they write, "Bookends support books and come in pairs...If the word encapsulates our past, it looks also to the future, and to the books -- lived together, written together -- that will follow." They confront the challenges of aging in a no-nonsense tone, and, in facing them, give us an ideal of enduring human friendship that can't help but touch the heart.

A major casualty of the assassin's bullet that struck down Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was a prospective peace accord between Syria and Israel. For the first time, a negotiator who had unique access to Rabin, as well as detailed knowledge of Syrian history and politics, tells the inside story of the failed negotiations. His account provides a key to understanding not only U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East but also the larger Arab-Israeli peace process. During the period from 1992 to 1996, Itamar Rabinovich was Israel's ambassador to Washington, and the chief negotiator with Syria. In this book, he looks back at the course of negotiations, terms of which were known to a surprisingly small group of American, Israeli, and Syrian officials. After Benjamin Netanyahu's election as Israel's prime minister in May 1996, a controversy developed. Even with Netanyahu's change of policy and harder line toward Damascus, Syria began claiming that both Rabin and his successor Peres had pledged full withdrawal from the Golan Heights. Rabinovich takes the reader through the maze of diplomatic subtleties to explain the differences between hypothetical discussion and actual commitment. "To the students of past history and contemporary politics," he writes, "nothing is more beguiling than the myriad threads that run across the invisible line which separates the two." The threads of this story include details of Rabin's negotiations and their impact through two subsequent Israeli administrations in less than a year, the American and Egyptian roles, and the ongoing debate between Syria and Israel on the factual and legal bases for resuming talks. The author portrays all sides and participants with remarkable flair and empathy, as only a privileged player in the events could do. In any assessment of future negotiations in the Middle East, Itamar Rabinovich's book will prove indispensable.

In his historic play The Melting Pot, Israel Zangwill (1864–1926) introduced into our discourse a potent metaphor that for nearly a hundred years has served as a key definition of the United States. The play, enthusiastically espoused by President Theodore Roosevelt, to whom it was dedicated, offered a grand vision of America as a dynamic process of ethnic and racial amalgamation. By his own admission, The Melting Pot grew out of Zangwill's intense involvement in issues of Jewish immigration and resettlement and was grounded in his interpretation of Jewish history. Zangwill, Anglo Jewry's most renowned writer, began writing seriously for the stage in the late 1890s. At the time, the negative stereotype of the so-called Stage Jew was still deeply entrenched in the theatrical mainstream, so much so that Jewish playwrights writing for the English-language stage avoided altogether the portrayal of Jewish life. Zangwill shattered this silence in 1899 with the American premiere of Children of the Ghetto―his first full-length drama, and the first English-language play devoted in its entirety to the depiction of Jewish life in an authentic and positive fashion. The play's groundbreaking production drew tremendous attention and generated heated debates, but since the script was never published, the memory of the passions it generated dimmed, and its whereabouts eventually became unknown. After more than a century, theater historian Edna Nahshon has discovered the original manuscript of this milestone text, as well as that of another unpublished Zangwill play, The King of Schnorrers, and the original version of The Melting Pot. Nahshon brings these three works together in print for the first time in From the Ghetto to the Melting Pot. Edna Nahshon's in-depth introduction to this volume includes a biography of Israel Zangwill that especially pertains to these works and situates them within the Anglo-American theater of the time. The essays preceding each play provide rich and hitherto unknown information on the scripts, their stage productions, and their popular and critical reception. While some issues addressed in From the Ghetto to the Melting Pot are uniquely Jewish, others are universal and typical of the negotiation of self-presentation by ethnic and minority groups, particularly within the American experience.

The Godless Constitution is an urgent and timely reexamination of the roots of church-state separation in American politics - and a ringing refutation of the misguided claims of the religious right. In this important polemic two distinguished scholars of American political ideas and religion refute this dangerous attempt to introduce what they term "religious correctness" into our politics, by reminding us that the absence of any mention of God in the Constitution was a conscious action on the framers' part, intended to prevent the bloody religious controversies that so marked European history. They also emphasize that church-state separation was seen as a guarantee of - not a hindrance to - religions liberty. Fully respecting the importance of religion in the public sphere, yet forthright in defining proper limits, The Godless Constitution offers a bracing return to the first principles of American democracy - and a guide to keeping them intact in the forthcoming presidential campaign.