"How can liberal democracy best be realized in a world fraught with conflicting new forms of identity politics and intensifying conflicts over culture? This book brings unparalleled clarity to the contemporary debate over this question. Maintaining that cultures are themselves torn by conflicts about their own boundaries, Seyla Benhabib challenges the assumption shared by many theorists and activists that cultures are clearly defined wholes. She argues that much debate--including that of "strong" multiculturalism, which sees cultures as distinct pieces of a mosaic--is dominated by this faulty belief, one with grave consequences for how we think injustices among groups should be redressed and human diversity achieved. Benhabib masterfully presents an alternative approach, developing an understanding of cultures as continually creating, re-creating, and renegotiating the imagined boundaries between "us" and "them." Drawing on contemporary cultural politics from Western Europe, Canada, and the United States, Benhabib develops a double-track model of deliberative democracy that permits maximum cultural contestation within the official public sphere as well as in and through social movements and the institutions of civil society. Agreeing with political liberals that constitutional and legal universalism should be preserved at the level of polity, she nonetheless contends that such a model is necessary to resolve multicultural conflicts. Analyzing in detail the transformation of citizenship practices in European Union countries, Benhabib concludes that flexible citizenship, certain kinds of legal pluralism and models of institutional powersharing are quite compatible with deliberative democracy, as long as they are in accord with egalitarian reciprocity, voluntary self-ascription, and freedom of exit and association. The Claims of Culture offers invaluable insight to all those, whether students or scholars, lawyers or policymakers, who strive to bridge the gap between the theory and practice of cultural politics in the twenty-first century"--

Political activity and student unrest have been recurring phenomena in American universities even after they reached their apogee in the 1960s. In Rebellion in the University, Seymour Martin Lipset reviews that turbulent period and places it in a larger historical perspective. He analyzes the source of student activism, the roles played by the faculty, the spectrum of campus political opinion, and the history of American campus protest. Two decades after this book was first written, the academic community is once more sharply divided over issues of political correctness. The term refers to the efforts by campus advocates of leftist politics to control the content of speech, courses, and appointments, and to impose their views with respect to multiculturalism, minority rights, and feminism. Lipset's new introduction is a major effort to account for this new wave of repressive moralism, to explain the issues involved, to locate sources of support and opposition, and to voice a judgment about the current situation in the American academic community.

Why have Americans, who by a clear majority approve of unions, been joining them in smaller numbers than ever before? This book answers that question by comparing the American experience with that of Canada, where approval for unions is significantly lower than in the United States, but where since the mid-1960s workers have joined organized labor to a much greater extent. Given that the two countries are outwardly so similar, what explains this paradox? This book provides a detailed comparative analysis of both countries using, among other things, a detailed survey conducted in the United States and Canada by the Ipsos-Reid polling group. The authors explain that the relative reluctance of employees in the United States to join unions, compared with those in Canada, is rooted less in their attitudes toward unions than in the former country's deep-seated tradition of individualism and laissez-faire economic values. Canada has a more statist, social democratic tradition, which is in turn attributable to its Tory and European conservative lineage. Canadian values are therefore more supportive of unionism, making unions more powerful and thus, paradoxically, lowering public approval of unions. Public approval is higher in the United States, where unions exert less of an influence over politics and the economy.

4to. 448 pp. Illustrated. As new in wraps.

A collection of short stories chronicling the plight of aging millennials as they enter their middle ages.

Simon Schama brings Britain to life through its portraits, as seen in the five-part BBC series The Face of Britain and the major National Portrait Gallery exhibition Churchill and his painter locked in a struggle of stares and glares; Gainsborough watching his daughters run after a butterfly; a black Othello in the nineteenth century; the poet-artist Rossetti trying to capture on canvas what he couldn't possess in life; a surgeon-artist making studies of wounded faces brought in from the Battle of the Somme; a naked John Lennon five hours before his death. In the age of the hasty glance and the selfie, Simon Schama has written a tour de force about the long exchange of looks from which British portraits have been made over the centuries: images of the modest and the mighty; of friends and lovers; heroes and working people. Each of them - the image-maker, the subject, and the rest of us who get to look at them - are brought unforgettably to life. Together they build into a collective picture of Britain, our past and our present, a look into the mirror of our identity at a moment when we are wondering just who we are. Combining his two great passions, British history and art history, for the first time, Schama's extraordinary storytelling reveals the truth behind the nation's most famous portrayals of power, love, fame, the self, and the people. Mesmerising in its breadth and its panache, and beautifully illustrated, with more than 150 images from the National Portrait Gallery, The Face of Britain will change the way we see our past - and ourselves.

Desta and the other members of her Falasha family, Jews suffering from discrimination in Ethiopia, finally flee the country and attempt the dangerous journey to Israel.

If you are among the 10 percent of people who happen to be left-handed, you've had to endure such derisive terms as "gauche" and "a left-handed compliment." At school you may have been forced to write with your right hand. And in another century your proclivity might have gotten you accused of witchcraft. Any left-handed person, or the spouse, parent, or friend of one, will be captivated by this essential and eye-opening book. With bracing wit and a flawless command of current research, psychologist Stanley Coren answers such questions as: Is left-handedness acquired genetically or socially? Are southpaws more creative than their right-handed fellows? Why do left-handers seem to die younger than right-handers? What can left-handers do to counteract the perils and prejudices that confront them in a world that leans to the right?

Ce recueil de six nouvelles (1935) illustre le génie de l'observation de Zweig, son sens magistral de la psychologie. Zweig voulait "résumer le destin d'un individu dans un minimum d'espace et donner dans une nouvelle la substance d'un livre".

While today the Nazi genocide of Jews is seen as a massacre unique in its savagery and a central feature of World War II, in 1933-45 it was accepted in the USA, and in the Western world in general, as one of the many wartime brutalities, almost understandable and predictable. Political leaders, public opinion, and later the Allied military greeted the first news concerning the Nazi persecution and murder of Jews with disbelief; later, when the facts of the Nazi mass murder of Jews became apparent, they tended to conflate the Nazi victimization of Jews with that of other ethnic groups. There was a tendency to diminish the scope of the genocide and even to see it as, at least partly, deserved by the victims. These views found expression in a commonly shared reluctance to receive Jewish refugees from Nazism. Opinion polls of the late 1930s-early 1940s show that the American public was consistently against any relaxation of immigration restrictions. In Western Europe and the rest of the Americas, sentiments were similar: some countries were ready to admit Poles, Czechs, and other refugees, but not Jews. These sentiments can only partly be ascribed to the economic hardships of the 1930s; their main cause was antisemitism, ethnic opposition to the Jewish alien. In the postwar years, the tendency to silence and trivialize the Holocaust persevered; it was only in the 1960s that public opinion recognized the Holocaust as unique. Argues against Peter Novick's view, according to which Holocaust memory initially fell victim to the Cold War. Contends that, in the 1960s, most people thought that the "Jewish question" was finally solved - by emancipation, assimilation and, last but not least, by the Nazi mass murder.

"Hailed as a remarkable literary discovery, a lost novel of heart-stopping intensity and harrowing absurdity about flight and persecution in 1930s Germany"--

Alice O'Neil writes about Black Women of the Old West for the Los Angeles Features Syndicate: This book traces how African American women challenged white bigotry, labored to create new lives and ultimately helped to transform sparse frontier settlements into thriving [western] states. It reveals how these pioneers brought culture and stability to the early communities from Ohio, Kansas and Texas to Oklahoma, Nevada and California. This is that perfect find: a book that entertains and enlightens. Mr. Katz's books on black history are well-known to readers young and old. Add this one to the growing list of literary treasure....Browsing through the many pictures is a true delight, like meeting distant relatives. A must-read.

The excerpts refer to the mass murder of Jews in the Nazi-occupied territories of the USSR, including the Baltic republics, the Polish areas occupied by Soviet troops in 1939, and Bukovina and Bessarabia, partially under Romanian military rule. Contains, also, information on Jewish partisans and on the participation of the local police and authorities in the annihilation of the Jewish populations. The Einsatzgruppen reports were discovered by the U.S. Army in the Gestapo headquarters in Berlin after the war, and used in the Einsatzgruppen Trial (1947-48) at Nuremberg.

Book by A. E. Hotchner

Traces Sophia Loren's rise from slum urchin of Pozzuoli to reigning queen of the cinema world, highlighting her early poverty, illegitimacy, criminal prosecution for adultery, marriage, and fight to have a child and surveying the triumphs and tribulations of her filmmaking career.

In this introduction to some of the most frequently discussed areas of philosophy, Sir Alfred Ayer made his subject accessible to both the general reader and the student. Among the topics covered are the nature of philosophy, varieties of philosophical analysis, theory of knowledge, status of physical objects, relations between body and mind, character of scientific explanation, theory of probability, elements of logic and the claims of theology. Although it ranges more widely, the book invites comparison with Bertrand Russell's The Problems of Philosophy.

Shai, a thirteen-year-old nonbinary homeschooler, attempts to find a "new normal" post-pandemic as they start public school, meet new friends, and learn about their Jewish identity.

The New York Times film critic shows why we need criticism now more than ever Few could explain, let alone seek out, a career in criticism. Yet what A.O. Scott shows in Better Living Through Criticism is that we are, in fact, all critics: because critical thinking informs almost every aspect of artistic creation, of civil action, of interpersonal life. With penetrating insight and warm humor, Scott shows that while individual critics--himself included--can make mistakes and find flaws where they shouldn't, criticism as a discipline is one of the noblest, most creative, and urgent activities of modern existence. Using his own film criticism as a starting point--everything from his infamous dismissal of the international blockbuster The Avengers to his intense affection for Pixar's animated Ratatouille --Scott expands outward, easily guiding readers through the complexities of Rilke and Shelley, the origins of Chuck Berry and the Rolling Stones, the power of Marina Abramovich and 'Ode on a Grecian Urn.' Drawing on the long tradition of criticism from Aristotle to Susan Sontag, Scott shows that real criticism was and always will be the breath of fresh air that allows true creativity to thrive. "The time for criticism is always now," Scott explains, "because the imperative to think clearly, to insist on the necessary balance of reason and passion, never goes away."

Hailed as important, entertaining, and revealing, Copland: Since 1943 is composer Aaron Copland's irresistible account of the latter half of his career--a career that brought us such pioneering works as Appalachian Spring and Lincoln Portrait, the movie scores for Of Mice and Men and Our Town, and numerous other orchestral and chamber works. It tells the story of how a self-described "brash young man from Brooklyn" went on to become one of the founding fathers of "serious" American music. Featuring cameos by luminaries such as Leonard Bernstein, Martha Graham, Agnes de Mille, Benny Goodman, and other peers of Aaron Copland during this explosively creative period, Copland: Since 1943 is an invaluable memoir that charts the crescendo of one of the most accomplished careers in the modern canon.

For nearly twenty years, Aaron David Miller has played a central role in U.S. efforts to broker Arab-Israeli peace. His position as an advisor to presidents, secretaries of state, and national security advisors has given him a unique perspective on a problem that American leaders have wrestled with for more than half a century. Why has the world's greatest superpower failed to broker, or impose, a solution in the Middle East? If a solution is possible, what would it take? And why after so many years of struggle and failure, with the entire region even more unsettled than ever, should Americans even care? Is Israel/Palestine really the "much too promised land"? This insightful first-person account offers a brilliant new analysis of the problem of Arab-Israeli peace and how, against all odds, it still might be solved.--From publisher description.