If you could become anyone in the world, who would you be? Did you ever wish you could be anyone else but who you are? Twins Ryan and Taylor do it all the time. Now their dream is about to come true. They've discovered mysterious alien disks that allow they to "flip"--to become legendary heroes from the past. But who?

From the editors of From One Experience to Another comes a new collection featuring celebrated writers for young adults. Contributors include Newbery Medal winners Jerry Spinelli and Betsty Byars, Paul Zindel, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and Jon Scieszka, author of The Stinky Cheese Man & Other Fairly Stupid Tales, a New York Times "Notable Book of the Year." Other authors include T.A. Barron, Tamora Pearce, Mary Ann McGuigan, Lois Metzger, Mel Glenn, Joyce Hansen, Rich Wallace, Joan Abelove and Eleanora E. Tate.

"This is the complete philosophical correspondence between two of the leading analytic philosophers of the late twentieth century, David Armstrong and David Lewis. Ranging from 1968 until Lewis' untimely death in 2001, this volume is an extraordinary philosophical repository of the highest order. It contains the backstory to some of the most important recent works of analytic metaphysics as well as documenting the formation of a deep philosophical friendship"--

The Shawl— which opened to critical and popular acclaim in April 1985— is about a smalltime mystic out to bilk a bereaved woman of her inheritance. In Prairie du Chien a railroad car speeding through the Wisconsin night is the setting for a violent story of obsessive jealousy, murder and suicide punctuated by the camaraderie of a friendly card game exploding into a moment of menace.

Nothing is quite what it seems in David Mamet's latest work. With a nod to his mentor, Harold Pinter, Mamet once again employs his signature verbal jousting in this battle of two women over freedom, power, money, religion -and the lack thereof. Premiered on Broadway, under the direction of the playwright, in Fall 2012 starring Patti LuPone and Debra Winger.

A smalltime mystic is out to bilk a bereaved woman of her inheritance.

"Verbal attacks against Israel for human rights violations have turned into physical attacks against the Jewish community worldwide. How has that happened? This book attempts to explain the phenomenon.Anti-Zionists, whose primary goal is destruction of the State of Israel, use accusations of the worst forms of human rights violations against Israel to delegitimize the state. These accusations criminalize the Jewish population worldwide for actual or presumed support of the State of Israel.The contemporary international human rights system and the existence of the State of Israel are twin legacies of the Holocaust. The failure of the human rights system to prevent attacks on Israel and the Jews is an aftershock of the Holocaust"--back cover.

This set is a sleeper! A pioneer in jazz pedagogy, a prolific writer, and one of the finest jazz educators in the world, David Baker has written eight tunes which contain a wide variety of styles and tempos. Truly performance level material, yet designed to address the needs of advancing improvisers. Challenges in swing, rock, Bossa Nova, waltz, slow groove, and ballad. Rhythm Section: Dan Haerle (p); Rufus Reid (b); Jonathan Higgins & Charlie Craig (d). Titles: Aulil * Black Thursday * LeRoi * Bossa Belle * Kentucky Oysters * Soleil d' Altamira * Passion * Le Miroir Noir.

The turn of the century was a time of explosive growth for American cities, a time of nascent hopes and apparently limitless possibilities. In Children of the City, David Nasaw re-creates this period in our social history from the vantage point of the children who grew up then. Drawing on hundreds of memoirs, autobiographies, oral histories and unpublished—and until now unexamined—primary source materials from cities across the country, he provides us with a warm and eloquent portrait of these children, their families, their daily lives, their fears, and their dreams. Illustrated with 68 photographs from the period, many never before published, Children of the City offers a vibrant protrait of a time when our cities and our grandparents were young.

"Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are usually treated as autonomous religions, but in fact across the long course of their histories the three religions have developed in interaction with one another. In Neighboring Faiths, David Nirenberg examines how Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived with and thought about each other during the Middle Ages and what the medieval past can tell us about how they do so today. There have been countless scripture-based studies of the three "religions of the book," but Nirenberg goes beyond those to pay close attention to how the three religious neighbors loved, tolerated, massacred, and expelled each other--all in the name of God--in periods and places both long ago and far away. Nirenberg argues that the three religions need to be studied in terms of how each affected the development of the others over time, their proximity of religious and philosophical thought as well as their overlapping geographies, and how the three "neighbors" define--and continue to define--themselves and their place in terms of one another. From dangerous attractions leading to interfaith marriage; to interreligious conflicts leading to segregation, violence, and sometimes extermination; to strategies for bridging the interfaith gap through language, vocabulary, and poetry, Nirenberg aims to understand the intertwined past of the three faiths as a way for their heirs to produce the future--together." -- Publisher's description.

Focusing on the design and implementation of computer-based automatic machine tools, David F. Noble challenges the idea that technology has a life of its own. Technology has been both a convenient scapegoat and a universal solution, serving to disarm critics, divert attention, depoliticize debate, and dismiss discussion of the fundamental antagonisms and inequalities that continue to beset America. This provocative study of the postwar automation of the American metal-working industry—the heart of a modern industrial economy—explains how dominant institutions like the great corporations, the universities, and the military, along with the ideology of modern engineering shape, the development of technology. Noble shows how the system of "numerical control," perfected at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and put into general industrial use, was chosen over competing systems for reasons other than the technical and economic superiority typically advanced by its promoters. Numerical control took shape at an MIT laboratory rather than in a manufacturing setting, and a market for the new technology was created, not by cost-minded producers, but instead by the U. S. Air Force. Competing methods, equally promising, were rejected because they left control of production in the hands of skilled workers, rather than in those of management or programmers. Noble demonstrates that engineering design is influenced by political, economic, managerial, and sociological considerations, while the deployment of equipment—illustrated by a detailed case history of a large General Electric plant in Massachusetts—can become entangled with such matters as labor classification, shop organization, managerial responsibility, and patterns of authority. In its examination of technology as a human, social process, Forces of Production is a path-breaking contribution to the understanding of this phenomenon in American society.

Our Miniature Editions TM collection continues to grow! Since 1989, when our first minis appeared, Running Press has offered an astonishing range of subjects, sure to find a place in any booklover's library!

It has now been more than forty years since President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on the streets of Dallas on November 22, 1963. No event in the post-war era, not even the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, has cast such a long shadow over our national life. The murder of the handsome and vigorous president shocked the nation to its core, and shook the faith of many Americans in their institutions and way of life. The repercussions from that event continue to be felt down to the present day. Looking back, it is now clear that Kennedy's death marked a historical crossroads after which point events began to move in surprising and destructive directions. In Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism, James Piereson examines this seminal event from an entirely new and provocative point of view. Most books on the assassination take up the question as to who was really responsible for killing the President. Mr. Piereson takes it as established fact that Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald. What needs to be explained, he argues, is the bizarre aftermath of the assassination: Why in the years after the assassination did the American Left become preoccupied with conspiratorial thinking? How and why was John F. Kennedy transformed in death into a liberal icon and a martyr for civil rights? In what way was the assassination linked to the collapse of mid-century liberalism, a doctrine which until 1963 was the reigning philosophy of the nation? In answering these questions, Piereson places great weight on the influence of Jacqueline Kennedy in shaping public memory of her husband and the meaning of his death. The Kennedy assassination, he argues, is a case study in public myth-making and the ways in which images and symbols can override fact and substance in political life.

The sudden and almost bloodless demise of the Soviet Union - and with it, communism - caught everyone by surprise, from the KGB and the Red Army to Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and the dissidents at home and in the satellite states. In the first full-scale account of this mysterious transformation, historian and journalist David Pryce-Jones is able to provide answers to the crucial questions: Why did Gorbachev not shoot his way out of the crisis in classic Soviet style, as former leaders had done in Hungary and Czechoslovakia? How did an unlikely alliance of nationalist actors, idealistic poets, and political priests unseat the ruling despots of Warsaw, Bucharest, East Berlin, and Prague? What role did the West really play in all this? And what do these remarkable events presage for Russia's future? The result is a vivid account of the Soviet empire's fall, as experienced from the inside - and at the top. Uncompromising in its accuracy and keen in its insight, The Strange Death of the Soviet Empire is the definitive account of one of history's greatest anticlimaxes.

The author of The Closed Circle , the bestselling account of Arab society and politics, relates the fall of the Soviet empire as experienced from the inside. Based on firsthand accounts from party leaders, decision-makers, and first secretaries of the republics and satellites, this dramatic narrative examines why the crumbling of Communism occurred so peacefully, how much was accidental and how much planned, and what Gorbachev's motivations might have been. ".fabulous, absolutely indispensable."-- Literary Review .

"A fascinating history."-- Time Out New York The acclaimed producer of such classic films as Chariots of Fire and The Killing Fields , and the only European ever to head a major Hollywood studio, former Columbia Pictures chief David Puttnam has written a fascinating behind-the-scenes history of the movie business and of the unique and frequently unholy alliance between commerce and art that underpins it. Puttnam's story moves from the early days of cinema and the rivalry between Edison and the Lumiere brothers, through the rise of the studio system, and up to the present day, with European filmmakers and politicians struggling to protect their industry and even their cultural identity from a triumphant and all-devouring Hollywood. In the process he introduces a host of colorful characters: from Goldwyn and Zanuck to Eisner and Ovitz. Movies and Money is a groundbreaking book that will change our understanding of the movie business. "Excellent.... A book so well written that it can easily be read at a single sitting."-- San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner "Puttnam has a dry sense of humor, and most of his book is jammed with astonishing anecdotes and seething portraits of the personalities of film history."-- Newsday

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and editor of The New Yorker writes on some of the essential musicians of our time.[Bokinfo]

Timely and controversial, A Bed for the Night reveals how humanitarian organizations trying to bring relief in an ever more violent and dangerous world are often betrayed and misused, and have increasingly lost sight of their purpose. Humanitarian relief workers, writes David Rieff, are the last of the just. And in the Bosnias, the Rwandas, and the Afghanistans of this world, humanitarianism remains the vocation of helping people when they most desperately need help, when they have lost or stand at risk of losing everything they have, including their lives. Although humanitarianism's accomplishments have been tremendous, including saving countless lives, the lesson of the past ten years of civil wars and ethnic cleansing is that it can do only so much to alleviate suffering. Aid workers have discovered that while trying to do good, their efforts may also cause harm. Drawing on firsthand reporting from hot war zones around the world -- Bosnia, Rwanda, Congo, Kosovo, Sudan, and most recently Afghanistan -- Rieff describes how the International Committee of the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, the International Rescue Committee, CARE, Oxfam, and other humanitarian organizations have moved from their founding principle of political neutrality, which gave them access to victims of wars, to encouraging the international community to take action to stop civil wars and ethnic cleansing. This advocacy has come at a high price. By calling for intervention -- whether by the United Nations or by "coalitions of the willing" -- humanitarian organizations risk being seen as taking sides in a conflict and thus jeopardizing their access to victims. And by overreaching, the humanitarian movement has allowed itself to be hijacked by the major powers, at times becoming a fig leaf for actions those powers wish to take for their own interests, or for the major powers' inaction. Rieff concludes that if humanitarian organizations are to do what they do best -- alleviate suffering -- they must reclaim their independence. Except for relief workers themselves, no one has looked at humanitarian action as seriously or as unflinchingly, or has had such unparalleled access to its inner workings, as Rieff, who has traveled and lived with aid workers over many years and four continents. A cogent, hard-hitting report from the front lines, A Bed for the Night shows what international aid organizations must do if they are to continue to care for the victims of humanitarian disasters.