Don Maximo Alanes was awarded a land grant from the king of Spain in 1843 known as El Rancho San Jose de Buenos Aires, stretching east-west from what is now Sawtelle Boulevard to Beverly Hills, and from Sunset to Pico Boulevards. Preserved into the 20th century under state senator John Wolfskill's ownership, the rancho was sold to Broadway Department Store founder Arthur Letts for $100 an acre in 1920 for estates he called Holmby Hills after his British birthplace. His son-in-law Harold Janss developed Westwood Hills in the southern tracts. Letts, a former trustee of the Los Angeles State Normal School, which became UCLA, agreed in 1925 to deed 375 acres of the hilly ranch land north of Wilshire Boulevard to the college. Janss developed a university town-style commercial village of 26 Spanish Revival buildings, some with towers and neon signs that remain icons of today's Westwood Village.

Tells the story of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s involvement with the Jewish community, drawing from previously unpublished material and interviews with Dr. King's associates, to examine his activities as an advocate for the human and civil rights of Jews.

Slavery in the United States clarifies the institution of slavery in its historical context. Filler avoids the all too prevalent literary attitude of either treating slavery as an unmitigated nightmare from the past, or regarding it as a way of life which warmly repaid slave and slaveholder. He does not reduce the issue to one of fact and figures, nor does he inject endless hypotheses and analogues. Rather, this finely etched volume encompasses the human implications of slavery and its practices. It emphasizes the distinguished and disreputable elements on both sides of the slavery relationship, and in every part of the United States. Slavery offers peculiar challenges to the student of American life, past and present. It is unrealistic to avoid the human implications of slavery and its practice. It is equally unhelpful to assume glib and partial viewpoints with respect to so all-embracing a system as slavery became. The cause of progress, no less than social science, is not advanced by indifference to patent facts. The civil libertarian who romanticizes black people indiscriminately, and lumps Jefferson Davis with Simon Legree may win popularity with enthusiasts and ideologues. But they will soon find themselves quaint and outmoded. The author reminds us that “the safest approach to slavery is to determine what the institution meant to the country at large; why it flourished as it did, and how it came to be opposed and overthrown.” The work includes high quality often neglected readings that permit the reader to form his or her own views. It reveals the best writing on all aspects of the slavery issue, as well as analytic summations by contemporary historians and social researchers.

"For one 1970's family, the center may not hold, but it certainly does fold. In 1978 Jimmy Carter mediates the Camp David Accords, Fleetwood Mac tops charts with Rumours, Starsky fights crime with Hutch, and twelve-year-old Lou Cove is uprooted from the Upper West Side of Manhattan to Salem, Massachusetts- a backwater town of witches, Puritans, and sea-captain wannabes. After his eighth move in a dozen years, Lou figures he should just resign himself to a teenage purgatory of tedious paper routes, school bullies, and unrequited lust for every girl he likes. Then one October morning an old friend of Lou's father, free-wheeling (and free-loving) Howie Gordon arrives at the Cove doorstep from California with his beautiful wife Carly. Howie is everything Lou wants to be: handsome as a movie star, built like a god and in possession of an unstoppable confidence. Then, over Thanksgiving dinner, Howie drops a bombshell. Holding up an issue of Playgirl Magazine, he flips to the center and there he is, Mr. November in all his natural glory. Howie has his eye on becoming the next Burt Reynolds, and a wild idea for how to do it: win Playgirl's Man of the Year. And he knows just who should manage his campaign. As Lou and Howie canvas Salem for every vote in town - little old ladies at bridge club, the local town witch, construction workers on break and everyone in between - Lou is forced to juggle the perils of adolescence with the pursuit of Hollywood stardom. Man of the Year is the improbable true story of Lou's thirteenth year, one very unusual campaign, and the unexpected guest who changes everything"--

As the founder of financial futures and initiator of Globex, the world's first global electronic trading system, Leo Melamed revolutionized the finance industry. Man of the Futures, his definitive memoir, recounts Melamed's journey from Holocaust survivor and accidental runner at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), to one of the most prominent leaders in the world of finance. At 33, Melamed gave up a promising law career to pursue his dream of becoming a full-time pit-trader at the CME. He quickly ascended the ranks to become chairman. From there, he set out to disrupt the status quo and ultimately transform both the exchange itself and the broader finance industry. Through daring to embrace innovative ideas many considered absurd, Melamed was a pioneer, continually fighting for modernisation in the financial markets through diversification and the introduction of new technologies. Covering the internal battles waged within the CME, the launch of the International Monetary Market (IMM) and the rise of Globex, this enthralling autobiography details the struggles, scandals and triumphs of a visionary in his field. Together with behind-the-scenes reminiscences about the financial markets, this narrative delves into Melamed's philanthropic work at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, as well as his fascinating dealings with political figures at home in Chicago, at the White House, and around the world in China, Japan, Singapore, Great Britain, Russia, South Korea, and Brazil. . Man of the Futures offers exclusive access to the rationale behind some of the biggest financial decisions and dealings in the late 20th and early 21st century. Join Leo Melamed for this fascinating and revealing story of a life lived in pursuit of the future. --

"A collection of essays--historical and personal--about the present and future of American cities Edited by Keith Gessen and Stephen Squibb, City by City is a collection of essays--historical, personal, and somewhere in between--about the present and future of American cities. It sweeps from Gold Rush, Alaska, to Miami, Florida, encompassing cities large and small, growing and failing. These essays look closely at the forces--gentrification, underemployment, politics, culture, and crime--that shape urban life. They also tell the stories of citizens whose fortunes have risen or fallen with those of the cities they call home. A cross between Hunter S. Thompson, Studs Terkel, and the Great Depression-era WPA guides to each state in the Union, City by City carries this project of American storytelling up to the days of our own Great Recession"--

'Theater legend Malina has written one of the most interesting studies of the avant-garde theatrical movement published in the last several years.' âe" CHOICE Judith Malina and The Living Theatre have been icons of political theatre for over six decades. What few realise is that she originally studied under one of the giants of twentieth century culture, Erwin Piscator, in his Dramatic Workshop at The New School in New York. Piscator founded the Workshop after emigrating to New York, having collaborated with Brecht to create "epic theatre" in Germany. The Piscator Notebook documents Malinaâe(tm)s intensive and idiosyncratic training at Piscatorâe(tm)s school. Part diary, part theatrical treatise, this unique and inspiring volume combines: complete transcriptions of Malinaâe(tm)s diaries from her time as a student at the Dramatic Workshop, as well as reproductions of various of Piscatorâe(tm)s syllabi and teaching materials; notes on Malinaâe(tm)s teachers, fellow students âe" including Marlon Brando and Tennessee Williams âe" and New School productions; studies of Piscatorâe(tm)s process and influence, along with a new essay on the relationship between his teaching, Malinaâe(tm)s work with the Living Theatre and "The Ongoing Epic"; an introduction by performance pioneer, Richard Schechner. The Piscator Notebook is a compelling record of the genealogy of political theatre practice in the early 20th Century, from Europe to the US. But it is also a stunningly personal reflection on the pleasures and challenges of learning about theatre, charged with essential insights for the student and teacher, actor and director. 'Piscator is the greatest theatre man of our time.' âe" Bertolt Brecht

In 1945 the United States saw the Soviet Union as its principal ally. By 1947, it saw the Soviet Union as its principal opponent. How did this happen? Historian John Lukacs has provided an answer to this question through an exchange of letters with George F. Kennan. Their correspondence deals with the antecedents of containment between 1944 and 1946, during most of which time Kennan was at the American embassy in Moscow. Kennan had strong opinions about America's appropriate role during and after World War II and is perhaps best known as the architect of America's containment policy. Much has been written about Kennan and containment, but relatively little is known about the events that made him compose and send the Long Telegram in 1946 that ultimately became the draft for foreign policy dealing with the Soviets in the following forty years. These letters show Kennan's fear of the extent to which the United States misunderstood the Soviet regime. Especially in 1944, at the time of the Russians' betrayal of the Warsaw Uprising, it became evident that the Soviets were interested in establishing their rigid domination of Eastern and Central Europe and dividing the continent. Kennan's letters to Lukacs are thorough and detailed, suggesting that the Truman administration was not in the least premature in opposing the Soviet Union. Indeed, both correspondents suggest that these decisions should have been made earlier. This series of letters will add greatly to our understanding of what preceded containment and the Cold War in 1947.

Does the American Dream still exist when nearly 30 million Americans live in families in which workers find a paycheck and poverty in the same envelope? Just as Michael Harrington's The Other America shocked the nation with its disclosure of poverty in the 1960s, John E. Schwarz and Thomas J. Volgy's The Forgotten Americans exposes the breadth of poverty that exists today among responsible, hardworking Americans. At the end of the prosperous 1980s, the number of Americans living in working-poor families equaled the combined populations of the nation's 25 largest cities. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this situation is not largely confined to minorities, women, the undereducated or young adults. It is commonplace for workers from nearly all segments of society to be employed in low-paying jobs even during good economic times. The Forgotten Americans reveals the betrayal of the hopes and expectations of these industrious people through broad-based factual evidence and the real-life stories of individual families. Their hardship has been ignored at enormous cost to them and the country. Numerous problems at the forefront of national debate--welfare dependency, crime, and the inadequate performance of many American school children--are closely connected to the existence of working poverty on a large scale. Unless corrective action is taken, the country risks the creation of a deeply fractured society arising from the despair of millions of employed people who have discovered that practicing the work ethic yields little reward. The problem is staggering and often misunderstood by politicians, the media, and the public. Once Schwarz and Volgy have outlined the implications of this social and economic tragedy, they propose effective solutions that require simple changes to existing policies--solutions that are politically feasible and can be accomplished without new taxes.

John B. Judis, one of our most insightful political commentators, most rational and careful thinkers, and most engaged witnesses in Washington, has taken on a challenge that even the most concerned American citizens shrink from: forecasting the American political climate at the turn of the century. The Paradox of American Democracy is a penetrating examination of our democracy that illuminates the forces and institutions that once enlivened it and now threaten to undermine it. It is the well-reasoned discussion we need in this era of unrestrained expert opinions and ideologically biased testimony. The disenchantment with our political system can be seen in decreasing voter turnout, political parties co-opted by consultants and large contributors, the corrupting influence of "soft money," and concern for national welfare subverted by lobbying organizations and special-interest groups. Judis revisits particular moments -- the Progressive Era, the New Deal, the 1960s -- to discover what makes democracy the most efficacious and, consequently, most inefficacious. What has worked in the past is a balancing act between groups of elites --- trade commissions, labor relations boards, policy groups -- whose mandates are to act in the national interest and whose actions are governed by a disinterested pursuit of the common good. Judis explains how the displacment of such elites by a new lobbying community in Whashington has given rise to the cynicism that corrodes the current political system. The Paradox of American Democracy goes straight to the heart of every political debate in this country.

The painter son of the great surrealist Max Ernst describes his childhood amid the European avant-garde art world on the eve of World War II and his escape and new life in America

Juxtaposes black-and-white photographs of houses in Hatfield, Massachusetts taken between 1882 and 1907 with color photographs of the same houses taken in the late 1990s, and features text that offers comparisons of life in the different eras.

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