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books tagged “cultural studies”
books tagged “cultural studies”
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Always Rememberby Paul MargoliesISBN 0684824000 (0-684-82400-0)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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Arguing the World : The New York Intellectuals in Their Own Wordsby Joseph DormanISBN 0684862794 (0-684-86279-4)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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Art & Liesby Jeanette WintersonISBN 0679762701 (0-679-76270-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Art & Lies'Book summary:One of the most audacious and provocative writers on either side of the Atlantic now gives readers a dazzling, arousing, and wise improvisation on art, Eros, language, and identity. "A series of intense, artful musings that are exhilarating and visionary. . . . Unsettling yet strangely satisfying."--Newsday. [via]
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Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effronteryby Jeanette WintersonISBN 0679768203 (0-679-76820-3)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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Articles of Faith: A Frontline History of the Abortion Warsby Cynthia GorneyISBN 0684867478 (0-684-86747-8)
Softcover, Touchstone Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Articles of Faith: A Frontline History of the Abortion Wars'Book summary:Ed McAteer died on 10/6/2004 = This is the story behind the launching of the Religious Right , the one man who spearheaded the mobilization of Christians behind Ronald Reagan, the founder of the Religious Roundtable, and a friend of Israel. [via]
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At the Edge of History: Speculations on the Transformation of Cultureby William I. ThompsonISBN 0686675703 (0-686-67570-3)
Hardcover, Ardent Media Inc
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The Barbie Chroniclesby Yona Zeldis McDonoughISBN 0684862751 (0-684-86275-1)
Softcover, Touchstone Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Barbie Chronicles'Book summary:A THOROUGHLY GROWN-UP LOOK AT A TWENTIETH-CENTURY MUSE OF OUTSTANDING PROPORTIONS
To some she's a collectible, to others she's trash. In The Barbie Chronicles, twenty-three writers join together to scrutinize Barbie's forty years of hateful, lovely disastrous, glorious influence on us all. No other tiny shoulders have ever, had to carry the weight of such affection and derision and no other book has ever paid this notorious little place of plastic her due. Whether you adore her or abhor her, The Barbie Chronicles will have you looking at her in ways you never imagined. [via]
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Being Digitalby Nicholas Negroponte, Marty AsherISBN 0679762906 (0-679-76290-6)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Being Digital'Book summary:As the founder of MIT's Media Lab and a popular columnist for Wired, Nicholas Negroponte has amassed a following of dedicated readers. Negroponte's fans will want to get a copy of Being Digital, which is an edited version of the 18 articles he wrote for Wired about "being digital."
Negroponte's text is mostly a history of media technology rather than a set of predictions for future technologies. In the beginning, he describes the evolution of CD-ROMs, multimedia, hypermedia, HDTV (high-definition television), and more. The section on interfaces is informative, offering an up-to-date history on visual interfaces, graphics, virtual reality (VR), holograms, teleconferencing hardware, the mouse and touch-sensitive interfaces, and speech recognition.
In the last chapter and the epilogue, Negroponte offers visionary insight on what "being digital" means for our future. Negroponte praises computers for their educational value but recognizes certain dangers of technological advances, such as increased software and data piracy and huge shifts in our job market that will require workers to transfer their skills to the digital medium. Overall, Being Digital provides an informative history of the rise of technology and some interesting predictions for its future. [via]
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Blonde Like Me: The Roots of the Blonde Myth in Our Cultureby Natalia IlyinISBN 0684852144 (0-684-85214-4)
Softcover, Touchstone Books
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The Book of Virtuesby William John BennettISBN 0684835770 (0-684-83577-0)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Book of Virtues'Book summary:Responsibility. Courage. Compassion. Honesty. Friendship. Persistence. Faith. Everyone recognizes these traits as essentials of good character. In order for our children to develop such traits, we have to offer them examples of good and bad, right and wrong. And the best places to find them are in great works of literature and exemplary stories from history.
William J. Bennett has collected hundreds of stories in The Book of Virtues, an instructive and inspiring anthology that will help children understand and develop character -- and help adults teach them. From the Bible to American history, from Greek mythology to English poetry, from fairy tales to modern fiction, these stories are a rich mine of moral literacy, a reliable moral reference point that will help anchor our children and ourselves in our culture, our history, and our traditions -- the sources of the ideals by which we wish to live our lives. Complete with instructive introductions and notes, The Book of Virtues is a book the whole family can read and enjoy -- and learn from -- together. [via]
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Borders Up! : Eastern Europe Through the Bottom of a Glassby Vitaliaei Vital'evISBN 0684851806 (0-684-85180-6)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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The Camp of the Saintsby Jean RaspailISBN 0684142406 (0-684-14240-6)
Hardcover, Scribner
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Captured by Aliens: The Search for Life and Truth in a Very Large Universeby Joel AchenbachISBN 0684848562 (0-684-84856-2)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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Carry Me Home : Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolutionby Diane McWhorterISBN 0684807475 (0-684-80747-5)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Carry Me Home : Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution'Book summary:The Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1863, but a contemporary African American saying predicted that freedom would come only after another hundred years of struggle. That prediction was about right: the civil rights struggle erupted in the middle of the 20th century, with its violent epicenter in the industrial city of Birmingham, Alabama. There freedom riders and voter-rights activists faced down Klansmen and Nazis, who had put aside their own differences to cast a pall of terror--and the smoke of a well-orchestrated campaign of church bombings--over the South.
Diane McWhorter, a journalist and native Alabamian, offers a comprehensive, literate record of the struggle that covers more than half a century and that involves hundreds of major actors. Her work is solidly researched and highly readable, and it offers much new information. Among the many newsworthy aspects of the book are McWhorter's discussions of internal power struggles within the civil rights movement, the uneasy role of Birmingham's small Jewish population, and the collusion of local government--especially swaggering Police Commissioner Bull Connor. The author also addresses the segregationist and white-supremacist movements and recounts the tortuous quest to bring the church bombers to justice, which was finally accomplished in 2000. Carry Me Home is a worthy and highly recommended companion to Taylor Branch's Parting the Waters and Andrew Young's An Easy Burden. --Gregory McNamee [via]
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Civilization of Europe in the Renaissanceby John HaleISBN 0684803526 (0-684-80352-6)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance'Book summary:Exploring every aspect of art, philosophy, politics, life and culture between 1450 and 1620, this enthralling panorama examines one of the most fascinating and exciting periods in European history. "A rich, dense book which combines inspiring generalizations with idiosyncratic detail" -The Spectator. Photos. [via]
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Cleopatra's Nose: Essays on the Unexpectedby Daniel J. Boorstin, Ruth Frankel Boorstin, Marty AsherISBN 0679755187 (0-679-75518-7)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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The Company They Keep: Life Inside the U. S. Army Special Forcesby Anna SimonsISBN 0684828162 (0-684-82816-2)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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Daughters of the Earthby Carolyn NiethammerISBN 068482955X (0-684-82955-X)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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Death in the Afternoonby Ernest HemingwayISBN 0684801450 (0-684-80145-0)
Softcover, Touchstone Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Death in the Afternoon'Book summary:Still considered one of the best books ever written about bullfighting, Death in the Afternoon is an impassioned look at the sport by one of its true aficionados. It reflects Hemingway's conviction that bullfighting was more than mere sport and reveals a rich source of inspiration for his art. The unrivaled drama of bullfighting, with its rigorous combination of athleticism and artistry, and its requisite display of grace under pressure, ignited Hemingway's imagination. Here he describes and explains the technical aspects of this dangerous ritual and "the emotional and spiritual intensity and pure classic beauty that can be produced by a man, an animal, and a piece of scarlet serge draped on a stick." Seen through his eyes, bullfighting becomes a richly choreographed ballet, with performers who range from awkward amateurs to masters of great elegance and cunning.
A fascinating look at the history and grandeur of bullfighting, Death in the Afternoon is also a deeper contemplation of the nature of cowardice and bravery, sport and tragedy, and is enlivened throughout by Hemingway's sharp commentary on life and literature. [via]
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- Death in the Afternoon: ISBN 068485922X (0-684-85922-X)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster - Death in the Afternoon: ISBN 0684157500 (0-684-15750-0)
Hardcover, Macmillan Pub Co - Death in the Afternoon: ISBN 0684717964 (0-684-71796-4)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster - Death in the Afternoon: ISBN 0684801450 (0-684-80145-0)
Softcover, Touchstone Books
- Death in the Afternoon: ISBN 068485922X (0-684-85922-X)
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The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executionsby Helen PrejeanISBN 0679759484 (0-679-75948-4)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions'Book summary:Since the 1993 publication of her memoir Dead Man Walking and the 1995 film it inspired, Sister Helen Prejean has become a powerful and articulate presence in the fight against the death penalty in America. In The Death of Innocents, Prejean focuses her argument on the ways in which an unjust system may be killing innocent people. She tells the story of two inmates she came to know as a spiritual adviser. Dobie Williams, a poor black man with an IQ of 65 from rural Louisiana, was executed after being represented by incompetent counsel and found guilty by an all-white jury based mostly on conjecture and speculation. Joseph O'Dell was convicted of murder after the court heard from an inmate who later admitted to giving false testimony for his own benefit. O'Dell received neither an evidentiary hearing nor potentially exculpatory DNA testing and was executed, insisting on his innocence the whole while. Besides exploring the shaky cases against them, Prejean describes in vivid detail the thoughts and feelings of Williams and O'Dell as their bids for clemency fail and they are put to death. The second part of the book details "the machinery of death," the legal process that Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, dismayed at the inequities of the death penalty, cited as his reason for resigning and that current justice Antonin Scalia has boasted of being a part of. Prejean is impassioned as she describes what she sees as an arrogant attitude by both Scalia and the contemporary judicial system. Her chance confrontation with Scalia at an airport is a gripping collision of disparate worlds. In recent years, DNA testing has overturned the convictions of scores of prisoners, including many on death row. As the death penalty is increasingly called into question, Sister Helen Prejean will surely be a force in that debate. --John Moe [via]
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Dog Loveby Marjorie GarberISBN 0684835525 (0-684-83552-5)
Softcover, Touchstone Books
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Everyday Life in Old Testament Timesby E.W. HeatonISBN 0684148366 (0-684-14836-6)
Hardcover, Presidio Pr
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Fasterby James GleickISBN 067977548X (0-679-77548-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Faster'Book summary:From the bestselling, national book award-nominated auhtor of genius and chaos, a bracing new work about the accelerating pace of change in today's world.most of us suffer some degree of "hurry sickness." a malady that has launched us into the "epoch of the nanosecond," a need-everything-yesterday sphere dominated by cell phones, computers, faxes, and remote controls. Yet for all the hours, minutes, and even seconds being saved, we're still filling our days to the point that we have no time for such basic human activities as eating, sex, and relating to our families. Written with fresh insight and thorough research, faster is a wise and witty look at a harried world not likely to slow down anytime soon [via]
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Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist 1968-1976by Douglas Brinkley, Hunter S. ThompsonISBN 0684873168 (0-684-87316-8)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist 1968-1976'Book summary:Louisville's finest returns with another huge batch of his private correspondence, hammered out from Woody Creek on his typewriter with the frenzied rat-tat-tat report of shots from the hip. Covering the Wonder Years, from the election of Nixon (which first fired his invective), Vietnam, the 1972 campaign, publication of the instantly notorious Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, to Watergate, the walking pharmacy reveals himself to be a surprisingly dedicated librarian, having dutifully filed carbons of all his correspondence for such an eventuality. By 1968, the success of Hell's Angels had seen his stock, if not his income, rise, and on the magazine Scanlan Monthly was born Gonzo journalism, dismissing objectivity for furious spontaneity fired from both barrels. However, the hidden image on the Polaroid was a bleary-eyed moralist in deadly earnest, uncontrollably seized by the free-associative rantings of a Tourette's sufferer.
The good doctor sees himself, the sub-title suggests, as an outlaw journalist. He certainly wants to resettle his country, and in many ways these 750 pages read as a "Dear John" from an estranged and bitterly spurned lover, the offending suitor being the American Dream. It's no coincidence that Gatsby, that symbol of its empty heart, is a recurrent reference. In fact, a book about the Death of the Dream was the white elephant that stalked these years, the Big Work that never happened. At least this volume contains much invention, not least of the self, and, if not always sober, then certainly incisive thinking, whether he's addressing fellow Gonzoid Ralph Steadman, Tom Wolfe or the Alaska Sleeping Bag Company. He claims his business is "defusing bombs and disarming landmines", a disingenuous reversal of how he often seems to be acting. An iconic reputation became his ball and chain, and he grew into a love/hate figure, particularly to himself, resembling an outrageous uncle at a family party. He was to become worshipped beyond his means, but for this period, while he huffed and puffed to blow Nixon's White House down, he remained a legend in his own overblown inkdom, something these letters vividly capture. --David Vincent [via]
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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dreamby Hunter S. ThompsonISBN 0679785892 (0-679-78589-2)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream'Book summary:Heralded as the "best book on the dope decade" by the New York Times Book Review, Hunter S. Thompson's documented drug orgy through Las Vegas would no doubt leave Nancy Reagan blushing and D.A.R.E. founders rethinking their motto. Under the pseudonym of Raoul Duke, Thompson travels with his Samoan attorney, Dr. Gonzo, in a souped-up convertible dubbed the "Great Red Shark." In its trunk, they stow "two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers.... A quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls," which they manage to consume during their short tour.
On assignment from a sports magazine to cover "the fabulous Mint 400"--a free-for-all biker's race in the heart of the Nevada desert--the drug-a-delic duo stumbles through Vegas in hallucinatory hopes of finding the American dream (two truck-stop waitresses tell them it's nearby, but can't remember if it's on the right or the left). They of course never get the story, but they do commit the only sins in Vegas: "burning the locals, abusing the tourists, terrifying the help." For Thompson to remember and pen his experiences with such clarity and wit is nothing short of a miracle; an impressive feat no matter how one feels about the subject matter. A first-rate sensibility twinger, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a pop-culture classic, an icon of an era past, and a nugget of pure comedic genius. --Rebekah Warren [via]
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Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in Americaby Laura WexlerISBN 0684868172 (0-684-86817-2)
Softcover, Scribner
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America'Book summary:On that July evening in 1946, the leader counted aloud and the mob of white men fired. Seconds later, the leader counted again, "One, two, three," and the mob fired once more. After the third and final volley of gunshots, the white men got into their cars and drove off, leaving the bullet-ridden bodies of two young black men and two young black women lying in the dirt near Moore's Ford Bridge in rural Walton County, Georgia. Since that summer evening, there have never been as many victims lynched in a single day in America.
Now, more than a half century later, Laura Wexler offers the first full account of the Moore's Ford lynching, a murder so brutal it stunned the nation and motivated President Harry Truman to put civil rights at the forefront of his national agenda. With the style of a novelist, the authority of a historian, and the tenacity of a journalist, Wexler recounts the lynching and the resulting four-month FBI investigation. Drawing from interviews, archival sources, and an uncensored FBI report, she takes us deep into the landscape of 1946 Georgia, creating unforgettable portraits of sharecroppers, sheriffs, bootleggers, the victims, and the men who may have killed them.
Fire in a Canebrake pursues the legacy of the Moore's Ford lynching into the present, exploring the conflicting memories of Walton County's black and white citizens and examining the testimony of a white man who claims he was a secret witness to the crime. In 2001, the governor of Georgia issued a new reward for information leading to the arrest of the lynchers. Several suspects named in the FBI's 1946 investigation are still alive, and there is no statute of limitations on the crime of murder.
Fire in a Canebrake -- a phrase local people used to describe the sound of the fatal gunshots -- is a moving and often frightening tale of violence, sex, and lies. It is also a disturbing snapshot of a divided nation on the brink of the civil rights movement and a haunting meditation on race, history, and the struggle for truth. [via]
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The First Stone: Some Questions About Sex and Powerby Helen GarnerISBN 0684835061 (0-684-83506-1)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The First Stone: Some Questions About Sex and Power'Book summary:The First Stone is at once an account of one of Australia's most explosive sexual harassment cases and an investigation into soul of sexual politics. To provide the framework of her inquiry, Helen Garner uses the very public case of a University of Melbourne college master accused of sexual harassment by two of his students. After reading about the charge in the newspaper, Garner, a longtime feminist, impulsively wrote a letter of support to the accused man. The letter was made public and in the wake of much criticism over her support of the man, Garner set out to explore the women's claims. Along the way she uncovers issues that challenge her notions of feminism, political activism, gender relations, and power dynamics. With a journalist's eye for detail, Garner leads the reader into a riveting examination of the nature of sex and power in contemporary society. [via]
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Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and Roll, 1947-1977by Jim MillerISBN 0684808730 (0-684-80873-0)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and Roll, 1947-1977'Book summary:Where did rock and roll come from? And what has it come to?
These are the sorts of questions that cultural historian and veteran music journalist Jim Miller raises in his challenging new book about the rise -- and arrested development -- of rock and roll. Concentrating on the music in its early, formative decades, he explores how rock and roll was transformed from a joyous and sometimes earthy dance music in the 1940s into an abrasive, often angry art music by the end of the 1970s. Along the way, he celebrates a culture of youthful exuberance -- and critically analyzes how it was organized into a billion-dollar global industry.
Arguing that rock underwent its full creative evolution in little more than twenty-five years, Miller traces its roots from the jump blues of the late Forties to the disc jockeys who broadcast the music in the early Fifties. He shows how impresarios such as Alan Freed and movie directors such as Richard Brooks (in "Blackboard Jungle)" joined black music to white fantasies of romance and rebellion, then mass-marketed the product to teenagers. Describing how early rock and roll developed as a distinct form of music, he profiles a host of brash innovators: singers like Chuck Berry and Little Richard, songwriters like Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, and British bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Chronicling the drug-laced early "acid tests" of the Grateful Dead, the mixed-media "happenings" of Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground, and the utopian atmosphere at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, Miller describes how the counterculture of the late Sixties, came together -- and then fell apart.
Still, it was in these very years that rock androll proved itself to be the most profitable style of music in the history of show business -- something Miller analyzes by looking at the promotion of rock icons like David Bowie and Bruce Springsteen. At the same time, he candidly recounts how trendsetting performers from Jim Morrison to Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols became ever more crude and outrageous and ugly -- "as if to mark the triumph," Miller remarks, "of the psychopathic adolescent."
"Flowers in the Dustbin" is steeped in the history of rock, richly anecdotal and entertaining, yet original in its analysis. Provocative and brilliantly written, it is full of fresh insights that deepen our understanding of rock's place in the social history of our time. [via]
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Flowers in the Dustbin: The Risk of Rock and Roll, 1947-1977by James MillerISBN 0684865602 (0-684-86560-2)
Softcover, Fireside
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Flowers in the Dustbin: The Risk of Rock and Roll, 1947-1977'Book summary:It appears that Flowers in the Dustbin author James Miller has just about had his fill of rock & roll. After chronicling a succession of triumphs in the development of the genre and its allied ancestors and offspring, here the veteran music scribe and editor of the superb first edition of The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll surveys an environment tainted by "the Muzak of the Millennium" and "artifacts of stunning ugliness" (exemplified by Marilyn Manson and Wu-Tang Clan). Miller ponders, "What if rock and roll, as it had evolved from Presley to U2, had destroyed the very musical sources of its own vitality?" The erudite yet eminently readable author doesn't answer his query in these pages, but he does prompt a longing for a time when pop culture moved too fast and impulsively to be processed and packaged.
Miller makes it his mission to tell the story of the "explosive growth" of rock & roll by recounting creative and commercial breakthroughs, dating from Wynonie Harris's 1947 recording of the jump-blues hit "Good Rockin' Tonight" through the last-gasp mutiny of the Sex Pistols and the death of Elvis Presley in 1977. In between, the development of top-40 radio begets the payola scandal of the '50s, Norman Mailer's "white Negro" becomes the model in a line of ever-more-self-conscious mavericks, and the 1960s trinity of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan pile remarkable musical and lyrical innovations atop one another like gifted children eager for attention. Once rock had reached its zenith, from the author's perspective, it didn't so much crumble as settle into regurgitated mush. That Miller is able to chronicle these dour developments in such an involving manner is testimony to his talent as a writer and historian, and to the thrill of rock & roll when it's right. --Steven Stolder [via]
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Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Usby Kate BornsteinISBN 0679757015 (0-679-75701-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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The Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Homeby Pico IyerISBN 0679776117 (0-679-77611-7)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home'Book summary:Pico Iyer's book of essays about international locales contends that the modern world-scurrying citizen, pushed by business demands or political migrations, can easily lose both roots and sense of home. Airports have morphed into cities where scores of languages are spoken, thousands work, and millions travel through mazed villages of McDonalds, massage parlors, and self-help groups that twist along for miles; the Dallas-Fort Worth airport alone grabs more space than Manhattan. And city life is no different: Iyer's apartment building also houses an immigration office, banks, four cinemas, dozens of restaurants and nearly 100 boutiques; the technologically plugged-in businessman with whom he stays has five phones across the world, a dozen international bank accounts, and travels more than a pilot.
Whether in Toronto--where in larger schools nearly 80 languages may be heard--London, or at the Olympics in Atlanta, Iyer witnesses the overlapping of hundreds of heterogeneous cultures, often pushed by corporate concerns toward commercial homogeneity and powered by technology that offers an office in the sky. The picture painted by Iyer--himself a confused and well-traveled multicultural citizen--is extreme, sci-fi, and futuristic even though set in the present: a global village turned spinning metropolis, with so many fragments set loose in its gyrations that it threatens to explode the minds of its residents. But even this shell-shocked world traveler finds peace, concluding that a simpler life may be a richer one and that home is simply where the frazzled mind decides it will be. In an era when new frontiers open monthly, when frequent flyer miles serve as currency, and constant change may be a lifestyle demand, Iyer's frantic words and dizzying images may prove as prophetic as Alvin Toffler's Future Shock. --Melissa Rossi [via]
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God Has Ninety-Nine Names: Reporting from a Militant Middle Eastby Judith MillerISBN 0684832283 (0-684-83228-3)
Softcover, Touchstone Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'God Has Ninety-Nine Names: Reporting from a Militant Middle East'Book summary:A comprehensive survey of militant Islam, or Islamism, from Judith Miller, former bureau chief for The New York Times in Cairo. She covers eight Arab countries, plus Iran and Israel, in providing a complete, if bleak, picture for Western readers: from poverty-stricken Egypt to rich Saudi Arabia, she believes Islamists are threatening Middle Eastern stability. Whether floundering under incompetent government, corruption, and repression, or, as in the case of Jordan, too dependent on one ruler, the states close to the West are weak, and vulnerable to a movement that promises social justice and moral righteousness. Miller is forthright in her condemnation of the intolerance and sexism of Islamic movements she sees as largely antithetical to Western democracy. A provocative and daring book. [via]
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The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religionby James George FrazerISBN 0684826305 (0-684-82630-5)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion'Book summary:Before Joseph Campbell became the world's most famous practitioner of comparative mythology, there was Sir James George Frazer. The Golden Bough was originally published in two volumes in 1890, but Frazer became so enamored of his topic that over the next few decades he expanded the work sixfold, then in 1922 cut it all down to a single thick edition suitable for mass distribution. The thesis on the origins of magic and religion that it elaborates "will be long and laborious," Frazer warns readers, "but may possess something of the charm of a voyage of discovery, in which we shall visit many strange lands, with strange foreign peoples, and still stranger customs." Chief among those customs--at least as the book is remembered in the popular imagination--is the sacrificial killing of god-kings to ensure bountiful harvests, which Frazer traces through several cultures, including in his elaborations the myths of Adonis, Osiris, and Balder.
While highly influential in its day, The Golden Bough has come under harsh critical scrutiny in subsequent decades, with many of its descriptions of regional folklore and legends deemed less than reliable. Furthermore, much of its tone is rooted in a philosophy of social Darwinism--sheer cultural imperialism, really--that finds its most explicit form in Frazer's rhetorical question: "If in the most backward state of human society now known to us we find magic thus conspicuously present and religion conspicuously absent, may we not reasonably conjecture that the civilised races of the world have also at some period of their history passed through a similar intellectual phase?" (The truly civilized races, he goes on to say later, though not particularly loudly, are the ones whose minds evolve beyond religious belief to embrace the rational structures of scientific thought.) Frazer was much too genteel to state plainly that "primitive" races believe in magic because they are too stupid and backwards to know any better; instead he remarks that "a savage hardly conceives the distinction commonly drawn by more advanced peoples between the natural and the supernatural." And he certainly was not about to make explicit the logical extension of his theories--"that Christian legend, dogma, and ritual" (to quote Robert Graves's summation of Frazer in The White Goddess) "are the refinement of a great body of primitive and barbarous beliefs." Whatever modern readers have come to think of the book, however, its historical significance and the eloquence with which Frazer attempts to develop what one might call a unifying theory of anthropology cannot be denied. --Ron Hogan [via]
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Hamlet on the Holodeck : The Future of Narrative in Cyberspaceby Janet Horowitz MurrayISBN 0684827239 (0-684-82723-9)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Hamlet on the Holodeck : The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace'Book summary:Technology changes storytelling--movies don't tell stories in the same manner as wandering bards. Janet H. Murray, director of the Laboratory for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is fascinated with the changes emerging technologies may bring. Interactive tales, more versatile structures, stories as games, and games as stories are among the topics she explores in her very personable and entertaining style. And what about fears that interactive escapism could be the coming addiction? She makes an unblinking examination of this question with insight into both the technological possibilities and the strengths of the human psyche. Strongly recommended for anyone who loves the art of storytelling in any medium. [via]
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Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams: A History of America's Romance With Illegal Drugsby Jill JonnesISBN 0684196700 (0-684-19670-0)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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A History of Celibacy: From Athena to Elizabeth I, Leonardo Da Vinci, Florence Nightingale, Ghandi, and Cherby Elizabeth AbbottISBN 0684849437 (0-684-84943-7)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A History of Celibacy: From Athena to Elizabeth I, Leonardo Da Vinci, Florence Nightingale, Ghandi, and Cher'Book summary:Readers who consider celibacy the exclusive domain of priests and nuns are in for a big surprise. Elizabeth Abbott's entertaining history traces over 3,000 years of sexual abstinence and illustrates how it has been practiced all over the world for a variety of reasons, both religious and secular. A History of Celibacy begins with the ancient Greek deities, Athena, Artemis, and Hestia, for whom celibacy was a means of liberation from traditional female servitude, and concludes with the present-day AIDS epidemic, a primary justification for the renewed call to celibacy. In between, Abbott, who dedicated eight years to this project, discovers fascinating examples of sexual abstinence, whether coerced or self-proclaimed, temporary or permanent. For example, celibacy enabled egalitarianism and female leadership for 18th-century Shakers, the Greek athlete enhanced athletic performance by conserving semen, and Shamans and Vodun priests to this day attain a state conducive to communicating with the spirits through short-term abstinence.
Abbott describes and analyzes over 120 instances of sexual abstinence, expertly illuminating the interrelation of detailed particulars with historical context and social norms. A bestseller in Canada, where Abbott serves as Dean of Women at Trinity College, A History of Celibacy neither advocates nor opposes the practice. Instead, Abbott, herself a converted celibate, emphasizes individual choice according to individual needs, drives, and desires. --Bertina Loeffler Sedlack [via]
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The House That Race Builtby Cornel West, Angela Y. Davis, Toni Morrison, Wahneema LubianoISBN 0679760687 (0-679-76068-7)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The House That Race Built'Book summary:Essays on politics and race [via]
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I'm a Spam Fan: America's Best-Loved Foodsby Carolyn WymanISBN 0681414456 (0-681-41445-6)
Hardcover, Longmeadow Pr
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The Illustrated Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religionby James George Frazer, Robert K.G. TempleISBN 0684818507 (0-684-81850-7)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Illustrated Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion'Book summary:Before Joseph Campbell became the world's most famous practitioner of comparative mythology, there was Sir James George Frazer. The Golden Bough was originally published in two volumes in 1890, but Frazer became so enamored of his topic that over the next few decades he expanded the work sixfold, then in 1922 cut it all down to a single thick edition suitable for mass distribution. The thesis on the origins of magic and religion that it elaborates "will be long and laborious," Frazer warns readers, "but may possess something of the charm of a voyage of discovery, in which we shall visit many strange lands, with strange foreign peoples, and still stranger customs." Chief among those customs--at least as the book is remembered in the popular imagination--is the sacrificial killing of god-kings to ensure bountiful harvests, which Frazer traces through several cultures, including in his elaborations the myths of Adonis, Osiris, and Balder.
While highly influential in its day, The Golden Bough has come under harsh critical scrutiny in subsequent decades, with many of its descriptions of regional folklore and legends deemed less than reliable. Furthermore, much of its tone is rooted in a philosophy of social Darwinism--sheer cultural imperialism, really--that finds its most explicit form in Frazer's rhetorical question: "If in the most backward state of human society now known to us we find magic thus conspicuously present and religion conspicuously absent, may we not reasonably conjecture that the civilised races of the world have also at some period of their history passed through a similar intellectual phase?" (The truly civilized races, he goes on to say later, though not particularly loudly, are the ones whose minds evolve beyond religious belief to embrace the rational structures of scientific thought.) Frazer was much too genteel to state plainly that "primitive" races believe in magic because they are too stupid and backwards to know any better; instead he remarks that "a savage hardly conceives the distinction commonly drawn by more advanced peoples between the natural and the supernatural." And he certainly was not about to make explicit the logical extension of his theories--"that Christian legend, dogma, and ritual" (to quote Robert Graves's summation of Frazer in The White Goddess) "are the refinement of a great body of primitive and barbarous beliefs." Whatever modern readers have come to think of the book, however, its historical significance and the eloquence with which Frazer attempts to develop what one might call a unifying theory of anthropology cannot be denied. --Ron Hogan [via]
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Invisible Pyramidby Loren EiseleyISBN 0684127326 (0-684-12732-6)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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It's All in the Frijoles: 100 Famous Latinos Share Real-Life Stories, Time-Tested Dichos, Favorite Folktales, and Inspiring Words of Wisdomby Yolanda NavaISBN 0684849003 (0-684-84900-3)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'It's All in the Frijoles: 100 Famous Latinos Share Real-Life Stories, Time-Tested Dichos, Favorite Folktales, and Inspiring Words of Wisdom'Book summary:Do you wish you could remember all the words to the childhood songs your grandmother taught you, so you could sing them to your children? Have you ever found yourself repeating the dichos, or proverbs, your parents used to lecture you with? If you are looking for a way to get back in touch with your culture, It's All in the Frijoles is the perfect start. A treasure trove of cherished folktales, lullabies, poems, and dichos, this rich collection of Latino wisdom includes inspiring recollections and anecdotes by well-known and beloved figures, both past and present -- from actor Edward James Olmos and author Isabel Allende to Nobel laureate Octavio Paz and Saint Teresa de Avila. It's All in the Frijoles is certain to evoke with fondness many a childhood memory of essential teachings learned from parents and grandparents, including:
*** El hombre debe ser feo, fuerte, y formal.
A man should be homely, hardy, and honorable.
El consejo de la mujer es poco y él que no lo agarra es loco.
The advice of a woman is very scarce and the person who does not heed it is crazy.
Pueblo dividido, pueblo vencido.
A people divided, a people conquered.
***
It's All in the Frijoles captures and perpetuates the essence of Latino tradition and is destined to become a family treasure that is passed down from generation to generation. This legacy of wisdom provides food for thought not only for Latinos but also for people of all other ethnic backgrounds. [via]
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Italiansby Luigi BarziniISBN 0684825007 (0-684-82500-7)
Softcover, Touchstone Books
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John Wayne's Americaby Garry WillsISBN 0684838834 (0-684-83883-4)
Softcover, Touchstone Books
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John Wayne's America : The Politics of Celebrityby Garry WillsISBN 0684808234 (0-684-80823-4)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internetby Sherry TurkleISBN 0684833484 (0-684-83348-4)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet'Book summary:May well be the first ethnographic study of the "computer world"...She has assembled a wealth of fascinating observations ... has conducted a far more thorough investigation than had been carried out before, and has written about her conclusions in a clear and lively way. --Howard Gardner, The New York Times Book Review [via]
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Lift Every Voice: Turning a Civil Rights Setback into a New Vision of Social Justiceby Lani GuinierISBN 0684811456 (0-684-81145-6)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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The Lives of Michel Foucault: A Biographyby David MaceyISBN 0679757929 (0-679-75792-9)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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The Lost Children of Wilder: The Epic Struggle to Change Foster Careby Nina BernsteinISBN 0679758348 (0-679-75834-8)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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Memoirs of a Geishaby Arthur GoldenISBN 0679781587 (0-679-78158-7)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Memoirs of a Geisha'Book summary:A literary sensation and runaway bestseller, this brilliant debut novel tells with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism the true confessions of one of Japan's most celebrated geisha. Speaking to us with the wisdom of age and in a voice at once haunting and startlingly immediate, Nitta Sayuri tells the story of her life as a geisha. It begins in a poor fishing village in 1929, when, as a nine-year-old girl with unusual blue-gray eyes, she is taken from her home and sold into slavery to a renowned geisha house. We witness her transformation as she learns the rigorous arts of the geisha: dance and music; wearing kimono, elaborate makeup, and hair; pouring sake to reveal just a touch of inner wrist; competing with a jealous rival for men's solicitude and the money that goes with it. In Memoirs of a Geisha , we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion. It is a unique and triumphant work of fiction-at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful-and completely unforgettable. [via]
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Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Moviesby Robert SklarISBN 0679755497 (0-679-75549-7)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies'Book summary:Hailed as the definitive work upon its original publication in 1975 and now extensively revised and updated by the author, this vastly absorbing and richly illustrated book examines film as an art form, technological innovation, big business, and shaper of American values. 80 black-and-white photos. [via]
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Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonderby Lawrence WeschlerISBN 0679764895 (0-679-76489-5)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder'Book summary:In the non-Aristotelian, non-Euclidean, non-Newtonian space between the walls of the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles exist bats that can fly through lead barriers, spore-ingesting pronged ants, elaborate theories of memory, and a host of other off-kilter scientific oddities that challenge the traditional notions of truth and fiction. Lawrence Weschler's book, expanded from an article for Harper's, is, at turns, a tour of the museum, a profile of its founder and curator, David Wilson, and a meditation on the role of imagination and authority in all museums, in science and in life. Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder is an exquisite piece of "magic realist nonfiction" that will prove utterly captivating. [via]
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The Mythic Journey: The Meaning of Myth as a Guide for Lifeby Liz Greene, Juliet Sharman-BurkeISBN 0684869470 (0-684-86947-0)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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Necessary Dreams: Ambition In Women's Changing Livesby Anna FelsISBN 0679758887 (0-679-75888-7)
Softcover, Anchor Books
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The Object Stares Back: On the Nature of Seeingby James ElkinsISBN 0684800950 (0-684-80095-0)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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The Other America: Poverty in the United Statesby Michael HarringtonISBN 068482678X (0-684-82678-X)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Other America: Poverty in the United States'Book summary:This powerful account draws on research by sociologists and economists to reveal the depth of the poverty crisis, analyzing why such "invisible" citizens as the elderly, children, and minorities are not given adequate opportunities. Originally published in 1962, Harrington's classic work on the plight of the poor in the midst of plenty remains all too relevant today. [via]
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Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Devianceby Howard S. BeckerISBN 0684836351 (0-684-83635-1)
Softcover, Free Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance'Book summary:"First Free Press paperback edition 1966"--T.p. verso. [via]
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Partisans : Marriage, Politics and Betrayal among the New York Intellectualsby David LaskinISBN 0684815656 (0-684-81565-6)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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Portnoy's Complaintby Philip RothISBN 0679756450 (0-679-75645-0)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Portnoy's Complaint'Book summary:Portnoy's Complaint n. [after Alexander Portnoy (1933- )] A disorder in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature. Spielvogel says: 'Acts of exhibitionism, voyeurism, fetishism, auto-eroticism and oral coitus are plentiful; as a consequence of the patient's "morality," however, neither fantasy nor act issues in genuine sexual gratification, but rather in overriding feelings of shame and the dread of retribution, particularly in the form of castration.' (Spielvogel, O. "The Puzzled Penis," Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, Vol. XXIV, p. 909.) It is believed by Spielvogel that many of the symptoms can be traced to the bonds obtaining in the mother-child relationship.
With a new Afterword by the author for the 25th Anniversary edition. [via]More editions of Portnoy's Complaint:
Race Rules: Navigating the Color Lineby Michael Eric DysonISBN 0679781560 (0-679-78156-0)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronxby Adrian Nicole LeblancISBN 0684863871 (0-684-86387-1)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx'Book summary:"Random Family" tells the American outlaw saga lurking behind the headlines of gangsta glamour, gold-drenched drug dealers, and street-corner society. With an immediacy made possible only after ten years of reporting, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc immerses the reader in the mind-boggling intricacies of the little-known ghetto world. She charts the tumultuous cycle of the generations, as girls become mothers, mothers become grandmothers, boys become criminals, and hope struggles against deprivation.
Two romances thread through "Random Family: " the sexually charismatic nineteen-year-old Jessica's dizzying infatuation with a hugely successful young heroin dealer, Boy George, and fourteen-year-old Coco's first love with Jessica's little brother, Cesar, an aspiring thug. Fleeing from family problems, the young couples try to outrun their destinies. Chauffeurs whisk them to getaways in the Poconos and to nightclubs. They cruise the streets in Lamborghinis and customized James Bond cars. Jessica and Boy George ride the wild adventure between riches and ruin, while Coco and Cesar stick closer to the street, all four caught in a precarious dance between life and death. Friends get murdered; the DEA and FBI investigate Boy George's business activities; Cesar becomes a fugitive; Jessica and Coco endure homelessness, betrayal, the heartbreaking separation of prison, and throughout it all, the insidious damage of poverty. Together, then apart, the teenagers make family where they find it. Girls look for excitement and find trouble; boys, searching for adventure, join crews and prison gangs. Coco moves upstate to dodge the hazards of the Bronx; Jessica seeks solace in romance. Both find that love is the only place to go.
A gifted prose stylist and a profoundly compassionate observer, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc has slipped behind the cold statistics and sensationalism surrounding inner-city life and come back with a riveting, haunting, and true urban soap opera that reveals the clenched grip of the streets. Random Family is a compulsive read and an important journalistic achievement, sure to take its place beside the classics of the genre. [via]
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Reasonable Creatures: Essays on Women and Feminismby Katha PollittISBN 0679762787 (0-679-76278-7)
Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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Republic of Dreams: Greenwich Village The American Bohemia, 1910-1960by Ross WetzsteonISBN 0684869969 (0-684-86996-9)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Republic of Dreams: Greenwich Village The American Bohemia, 1910-1960'Book summary:New York's Greenwich Village, "the most significant square mile in American cultural history" and "home of half the talent and half the eccentricity in the country," is the subject of Ross Wetzsteon's Republic of Dreams, an enthusiastic and rigorous biography of place. From the Village sprung American socialism, gay liberation, the YMCA, the American Civil Liberties Union, The Reader's Digest, the phrase "I heard it through the grapevine," the Colt .45 revolver, and America's first night court, for starters. It was in the Village where Kahlil Gibran wrote The Prophet and the buffalo nickel was designed. Wetzsteon is primarily interested in the place between the years 1910 (when, he says, it became a "self-conscious bohemian and radical community") and 1960, when cultural boundaries "blurred" and the "hegemony of 'the normal'" disappeared. This is not a "walking tour" of famous hangouts so much as a portrait built on a chronological series of richly detailed biographies of Village denizens renowned, notorious, and relatively obscure, including Max Eastman, E.E. Cummings, Jackson Pollock and other abstract expressionists, a Who's Who of American feminists, Eugene O'Neill, and Mabel Dodge. Wetzsteon, who died in 1998, revels in the Village's inherent chaos, contradictions, and mutation, and never succumbs to "golden age" nostalgia. As his daughter writes in an afterword, "the Village is dead; long live the Village." Republic of Dreams, eminently readable, unflaggingly perceptive, and immaculately researched, is, arguably, the seminal study to date of America's most fertile literary, artistic, and political geographical dot. --H. O'Billovich [via]
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Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtueby Wendy ShalitISBN 0684863170 (0-684-86317-0)
Softcover, Free Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue'Book summary:Where once a young woman had to be ashamed of her sexual experience, today she is ashamed of her sexual inexperience. Where not long ago an unmarried woman was ashamed to give public evidence of sexual desire by living with someone, today she must be ashamed to give evidence of romantic desire. From sex education in grade school to coed bathrooms in college, today's young woman is being pressured relentlessly to overcome her embarrassment, her "hang-ups," and especially her romantic hopes.
Meanwhile, the problems young women struggle with grow steadily more extreme: from sexual harassment, stalking, and date rape to anorexia and self-mutilation. Both men and women endlessly lament the loss of privacy and of real intimacy. What is it all about?
Beholden neither to conservatives who discount as exaggeration the dangers facing young women, nor to feminists who steadfastly affix blame on the patriarchy, Wendy Shalit proposes that, in fact, we have lost our respect for an important classical virtue -- that of sexual modesty. "A Return to Modesty is a deeply personal account as well as a fascinating intellectual exploration. From seventeenth-century manners guides to Antonio Canova's sculpture, "Venus Italico," to Frank Loesser's 1948 tune, "Baby, It's Cold Outside," "A Return to Modesty unfolds like a detective's search for a lost idea as Shalit uncovers opinions about this lost virtue's importance, from Balzac to Simone de Beauvoir, that have not been aired for decades. Then she knocks down the accompanying myths one by one. Female modesty is not about a "sexual double standard," as is often thought, but is related to male virtue and honor. Modesty is not a social construct,but a natural response. And modesty is not prudery, but a way to preserve a sense of the erotic in our lives.
With humor and piercing insight, Shalit invites us to look beyond the blush and consider the new power to be found in an old ideal. She maintains that the sex education curriculum forced on those of her generation from an early age is fundamentally flawed, centered as it is on overcoming reticence -- what we today call "hang-ups." Shalit surprisingly and persuasively argues that without these misnamed hang-ups there can be no true surrender, no richness and depth to relations between the sexes. The natural inclination toward modesty is not a hang-up that we should set out to cure, but rather a wonderful instinct that, if rediscovered and given the right social support, has the power to transform society. [via]
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S/Zby Roland BarthesISBN 0686539443 (0-686-53944-3)
Softcover, French & European Pubns
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The Secrets of Mariko: A Year in the Life of a Japanese Woman and Her Familyby Elisabeth BumillerISBN 0679772626 (0-679-77262-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Secrets of Mariko: A Year in the Life of a Japanese Woman and Her Family'Book summary:As it follows a Japanese housewife named Mariko Tanaka over the course of a year, The Secrets of Mariko transcends reportage to yield the kind of human insights we expect from literature. Meet Mariko, a cheerful, overscheduled woman who cares for three children, two aging parents, and an unresponsive husband. As readers watch Mariko take part in PTA meetings, bicker with her teenagers, and pursue independence through her part-time job, they come to see Mariko as someone whose dreams and disappointments mirror our own. [via]
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The Seventies : The Great Shift in American Culture, Society and Politicsby Bruce J. SchulmanISBN 0684828146 (0-684-82814-6)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Seventies : The Great Shift in American Culture, Society and Politics'Book summary:During the past two decades, the 1970s have been trivialized, misunderstood, or dismissed as having kitsch value only. But as we move into a new millennium, the seventies are passing from pop culture into history. Bruce Schulman, the first historian to grapple with the seventies, here provides the only comprehensive history of America between 1968 and 1984. He argues persuasively that the "long decade" -- from Nixon's election to Reagan's reelection -- involved a crucial cultural and political shift.
Beginning with Richard Nixon's "southern" strategy in 1968, to the rise of the Sunbelt cities and the explosion of country music, the 1970s saw the decline of the North's cultural dominance. By the end of the decade, the South had shed its rural, agricultural heritage and erased its reputation as hopelessly backward and impoverished. A transformed, commercialized southern white culture flourished and spread across the country.
In an engaging blend of anecdote and analysis, Changes in Latitude provides the first real assessment of these crucial years, and the ways in which they changed America forever. [via]
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Sharing the Journey: Support Groups and America's New Quest for Communityby Robert WuthnowISBN 0684826232 (0-684-82623-2)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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Six Myths of Our Time : Little Angels, Little Monsters, Beautiful Beasts, and Moreby Marina WarnerISBN 0679759247 (0-679-75924-7)
Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Six Myths of Our Time : Little Angels, Little Monsters, Beautiful Beasts, and More'Book summary:Is Jurassic Park a work of covert misogynist propaganda? Does romanticizing childhood lead to abusing children? What secret correspondence links Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to video games and Shakespeare's Caliban to Hannibal Lecter? in what ways do our culture's most hallowed legends inform the current debates over single mothers, the men's movement, and animal rights?
In these six dazzlingly intelligent and provocative essays, the distinguished English novelist and critic Marina Warner weaves classical mythology, pop culture, and today's headlines into a potent work of cultural criticism that is both unsettling and entertaining. Ranging from Medeato Thelma and Louise and from myths of cannibalism to the politics of rape, Six Myths of Our Time is at once a celebration of the enduring power of fable and a welcome antidote to its more virulent manifestations in our public life. [via]More editions of Six Myths of Our Time : Little Angels, Little Monsters, Beautiful Beasts, and More:
Somewhere in the Night : Film Noir and the American Cityby Nicholas ChristopherISBN 0684828030 (0-684-82803-0)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human Worldby David AbramISBN 0679776397 (0-679-77639-7)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World'Book summary:David Abram's writing casts a spell of its own as he weaves the reader through a meticulously researched work that gently addresses such seemingly daunting topics as where the past and future exist, the relationship between space and time, and how the written word serves to sever humans from their primordial source of sustenance: the earth.
"Only as the written text began to speak would the voices of the forest, and of the river, begin to fade. And only then would language loosen its ancient associations with the invisible breath, the spirit sever itself from the wind, the psyche dissociate itself from the environing air," writes Abram of the separation caused by the proliferation of the written word.
In writing The Spell of the Sensuous, Abram consulted an engaging collection of peoples and works. He uses aboriginal song lines, stories from the Koyukon people of northwestern Alaska, the philosophy of phenomenology, and the speeches of Socrates to paint a poetic landscape that explains how we became separated from the earth in the first place. With minimal environmental doomsaying, Abram discusses how we can begin to recover a sustainable relationship with the earth and the nonhuman beings who live among us--in the more-than-human world. --Kathryn True [via]
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Subject to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics, and Cultureby Katha PollittISBN 0679783431 (0-679-78343-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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Telling the Truth: Why Our Culture and Our Country Have Stopped Making Sense--And What We Can Do About Itby Lynne V. CheneyISBN 0684825341 (0-684-82534-1)
Softcover, Touchstone Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Telling the Truth: Why Our Culture and Our Country Have Stopped Making Sense--And What We Can Do About It'Book summary:Challenging the rhetoric of multiculturalism, radical feminism, critical race theory, and other popular trends, Lynne Cheney calls for the restoration of truth and reason to a central place in our lives. In Telling the Truth, Cheney gives us a detailed examination of American cultural and political institutions, journalism, and education. She shows how a disdain for objective truth and principles has created a moral and intellectual crisis that threatens the foundation of America's legal, political, and social order. [via]
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The Third Cultureby John BrockmanISBN 0684823446 (0-684-82344-6)
Softcover, Touchstone Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Third Culture'Book summary:In this treatise on the central role of science, John Brockman contends that science is becoming the predominant culture and scientists are taking the place of traditional intellectuals in answering the important questions facing humankind. Structured in interview format, The Third Culture consists of 23 noted scientists discussing their theories, the nature of scientific inquiry, and their common desire to be recognized as today's intellectual leaders. [via]
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Manby Henry Louis GatesISBN 0679776664 (0-679-77666-4)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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The Unconscious Civilizationby John Ralston SaulISBN 0684871084 (0-684-87108-4)
Softcover, Free Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Unconscious Civilization'Book summary:In this intellectual tour de force, Saul argues that the West now toils unconsciously in the grip of a stifling "corporatist" structure that serves the needs of business managers and technocrats as it promotes the segmentation of society into competing interest groups and ethnic blocks. [via]
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Under the Big Top: A Season With the Circusby Bruce S. FeilerISBN 0684197588 (0-684-19758-8)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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Unmentionables : 50 Years of Underwearby Elaine Benson, John EstenISBN 0684822660 (0-684-82266-0)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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The Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in Americaby Jeffrey RosenISBN 0679765204 (0-679-76520-4)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Menby Christina Hoff SommersISBN 0684849577 (0-684-84957-7)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men'Book summary:The author of the provocative bestseller Who Stole Feminism? returns with an equally eye-opening follow-up. "It's a bad time to be a boy in America," writes Christina Hoff Sommers. Boys are less likely than girls to go to college or do their homework. They're more likely to cheat on tests, wind up in detention, or drop out of school. Yet it's "the myth of the fragile girl," according to Sommers, that has received the lion's share of attention recently, in hot-selling books like Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia. When boys are discussed at all, it's in the context of how to modify their antisocial behavior--i.e., how to make them more like girls.
This book tells the story of how it has become fashionable to attribute pathology to millions of healthy male children. It is a story of how we are turning against boys and forgetting a simple truth: that the energy, competitiveness, and corporal daring of normal, decent males is responsible for much of what is right in the world. No one denies that boys' aggressive tendencies must be checked and channeled in constructive ways. Boys need discipline, respect, and moral guidance. Boys need love and tolerant understanding. They do not need to be pathologized.
Sommers eviscerates feminist scholarship by Harvard's Carol Gilligan, the American Association of University Women, and others. Hers is feisty, muscular prose and fans of Who Stole Feminism? will delight in it. "There have always been societies that favored boys over girls," she writes. "Ours may be the first to deliberately throw the gender switch. If we continue on our present course, boys will, indeed, be tomorrow's second sex." That rhetoric may err on the side of alarmism, but Sommers' ideas are full of common sense. She essentially urges parents and educators to let boys be boys, even though their "very masculinity turns out to be politically incorrect." The War on Boys is sure to set off a fiery controversy, just as Sommers' previous book did--but it should also find a big audience of readers who become fans. --John J. Miller [via]More editions of The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men:
Weird Like Usby Ann PowersISBN 0684838087 (0-684-83808-7)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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What Wild Ecstasy : The Rise and Fall of the Sexual Revolutionby John HeidenryISBN 0684810379 (0-684-81037-9)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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Who Are We: The Challenges to America's National Identityby Samuel P. HuntingtonISBN 0684870541 (0-684-87054-1)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Who Are We: The Challenges to America's National Identity'Book summary:In his seminal work "The Clash of Civilizations" and the "Remaking of World Order," Samuel Huntington argued provocatively and presciently that with the end of the cold war, "civilizations" were replacing ideologies as the new fault lines in international politics.
His astute analysis has proven correct. Now Professor Huntington turns his attention from international affairs to our domestic cultural rifts as he examines the impact other civilizations and their values are having on our own country.
America was founded by British settlers who brought with them a distinct culture including the English language, Protestant values, individualism, religious commitment, and respect for law. The waves of immigrants that later came to the United States gradually accepted these values and assimilated into America's Anglo-Protestant culture. More recently, however, national identity has been eroded by the problems of assimilating massive numbers of primarily Hispanic
immigrants, bilingualism, multiculturalism, the devaluation of citizenship, and the "denationalization" of American elites.
September 11 brought a revival of American patriotism and a renewal of American identity. But already there are signs that this revival is
fading, even though in the post-September 11 world, Americans face unprecedented challenges to our security.
"Who Are We?" shows the need for us to reassert the core values that make us Americans. Nothing less than our national identity is at stake.
Once again Samuel Huntington has written an important book that is certain to provoke a lively debate and to shape our national conversation about who we are.\
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Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Womenby Christina Hoff SommersISBN 0684801566 (0-684-80156-6)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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You're Too Kind: A Brief History of Flatteryby Richard StengelISBN 0684854929 (0-684-85492-9)
Softcover, Touchstone Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'You're Too Kind: A Brief History of Flattery'Book summary:Not so long ago, someone with too much time on his hands conducted a study that indicated that waiters who drew little smiley faces at the bottom of their checks received tips that were, on average, 10 percent higher than those of waiters who just brought their customers an unadorned check. This practice makes use of flattery insofar as it makes us feel that our waiter was happy to serve us, instead of just doing his job. We feel good about ourselves. We feel good about the waiter. We give him money.
Over the years, people have offered many different definitions of and opinions on flattery, and flattery itself has changed "from flattery as a technique for persuading a whole class of people to flattery as a technique for influencing a single person." Is it venal? Is it a victimless crime? Is it a diluted form of praise? Is it merely, as Lord Chesterfield suggested, "a complaisant indulgence for people's weaknesses"? Or is it just lying? In his book You're Too Kind, Richard Stengel ponders the meaning of flattery and charts a droll and whimsical history, starting with the Egyptians ("Laugh after he laughs, and it will be very pleasing to his heart," recommends Vizier Ptahhotep), and concluding with handy hints on how to flatter without getting caught: "Never be candid when a person asks you to be candid." In between, he asks questions such as "What is circumcision, really, but a kind of divinely enforced flattery?" in an irreverent discourse around the covenant with the Israelites, and looks at everyone from troubadours to Dale Carnegie, Puritans to Hollywood D-girls.
The dust jacket sports plaudits by impresario of flattery Jay Leno and spinmeister George Stephanopoulos, who vouch that You're Too Kind is indeed a diverting book for the reader--like yourself--with taste, discretion, and, ahem, humor. --J. Riches [via]
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