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Agatha: The International Bestseller
by Anne Cathrine BomannSet in 1940s Paris, this bittersweet international bestseller this is the perfect novel for fans of A Man Called Ove, My Name is Lucy Barton and The Guest CatA psychiatrist is counting down towards his upcoming retirement. He lives alone in his childhood home and has neither friends nor family.Often, he resorts to drawing bird caricatures of his patients instead of taking notes. His social life consists of brief conversations with his meticulous secretary Madame Surrugue, who has reigned over the clinic for more than thirty years. The two of them have no relationship outside the office, where everything runs smoothly and uneventfully.Until one day, that is, when a young German woman called Agatha arrives and demands to see the doctor and he soon realizes that underneath her fragile exterior is a strong and fascinating woman. The doctor and Agatha embark upon a course of therapy together, a process that forces the doctor to confront his fear of true intimacy outside the clinic. But is it too late to reconsider your existence as a 71-year-old?'A shrewd, skilful tale of loneliness, the search for meaning and a place in the world, and the problems of truly relating to another human being.' Independent
Agave Spirits: The Past, Present, And Future Of Mezcals
by Gary Paul Nabhan David Suro Piñera“A manifesto…[and] a positive spin on the future of mezcal.” —Florence Fabricant, New York Times The agave plant was never destined to become tasteless, cheap tequila. All tequilas are mezcals; all mezcals are made from agaves; and every bottle of mezcal is the remarkable result of collaborations among agave entrepreneurs, botanists, distillers, beverage distributors, bartenders, and more. How these groups come together in this “spirits world” is the subject of this fascinating new book by the acclaimed ethnobotanist Gary Paul Nabhan and the pioneering restauranteur David Suro Piñera. Join them as they delight in the diversity of the distillate agave spirits, as they endeavor to track down the more distant kin in the family of agaves, and as, along the way, they reveal the stunning innovations that have been transforming the industry around tequilas and mezcals in recent decades. The result of the authors’ fieldwork and on-the-ground interviews with mezcaleros in eight Mexican states, Agave Spirits shows how traditional methods of mezcal production are inspiring a new generation of individuals, including women, both in and beyond the industry. And as they reach back into a rich, centuries-long history, Nabhan and Suro Piñera make clear that understanding the story behind a bottle of mezcal, more than any other drink, will not only reveal what lies ahead for the tradition—including its ability to adapt in the face of the climate crisis—but will also enrich the drinking experience for readers. Essential reading for mezcal connoisseurs and amateurs interested in unlocking the past of a delightful distillate, Agave Spirits tells the tale of the most flavorful and memorable spirits humankind has ever sipped and savored. Featuring twelve illustrations by René Alejandro Hernández Tapia and indices that list common and scientific names for agave species, as well as the names of plants, animals, and domesticated agaves used in the production of distillates.
Age 14: Patrick Condon, Boy Soldier In Wwi
by Terese Edelstein Geert SpillebeenIt is 1913, and twelve-year-old Patrick Condon wants to escape his unexciting life in Ireland. So he hatches a plan. Not wanting to wait until he is old enough to join the army, Patrick lies and says he seventeen years old, and that his name is John Condon. Assuming the identity of his older brother, Patrick enlists. John fits in quickly, though it is obvious that John is not 17, or even 16. That doesn't matter. John is strong, fast, and a hard worker. He loves military life. This man's world is just what John wanted. But when WWI begins in 1914, John gets all he has been looking for, and more he does not expect, as he is just a boy...
Age Of Capital: 1848-1875
by Eric HobsbawmA magisterial account of the rise of capitalismEric Hobsbawm's magnificent treatment of the crucial years 1848-1875 is a penetrating analysis of the rise of capitalism and the consolidation of bourgeois culture. In the 1860s a new word entered the economic and political vocabulary of the world: 'capitalism'. The global triumph of capitalism is the major theme of history in the decades after 1848. The extension of capitalist economy to four corners of the globe, the mounting concentration of wealth, the migration of men, the domination of Europe and European culture made the third quarter of the nineteenth century a watershed. This is a history not only of Europe but of the world. Eric Hobsbawm's intention is not to summarise facts, but to draw facts together into a historical synthesis, to 'make sense of' the period, and to trace the roots of the present world back to it. He integrates economics with political and intellectual developments in this objective yet original account of revolution and the failure of revolution, of the cycles of boom and slump that characterise capitalist economies, of the victims and victors of the bourgeois ethos.
Age Of Capital: 1848-1875
by Prof Eric HobsbawmA magisterial account of the rise of capitalismEric Hobsbawm's magnificent treatment of the crucial years 1848-1875 is a penetrating analysis of the rise of capitalism and the consolidation of bourgeois culture. In the 1860s a new word entered the economic and political vocabulary of the world: 'capitalism'. The global triumph of capitalism is the major theme of history in the decades after 1848. The extension of capitalist economy to four corners of the globe, the mounting concentration of wealth, the migration of men, the domination of Europe and European culture made the third quarter of the nineteenth century a watershed. This is a history not only of Europe but of the world. Eric Hobsbawm's intention is not to summarise facts, but to draw facts together into a historical synthesis, to 'make sense of' the period, and to trace the roots of the present world back to it. He integrates economics with political and intellectual developments in this objective yet original account of revolution and the failure of revolution, of the cycles of boom and slump that characterise capitalist economies, of the victims and victors of the bourgeois ethos.
Age Of Empire: 1875-1914
by Eric HobsbawmTHE AGE OF EMPIRE is a book about the strange death of the nineteenth century, the world made by and for liberal middle classes in the name of universal progress and civilisation. It is about hopes realised which turned into fears: an era of unparalleled peace engendering an era of unparalleled war; revolt and revolution emerging on the outskirts of society; a time of profound identity crisis for bourgeois classes, among new and sudden mass labour movements which rejected capitalism and new middle classes which rejected liberalism. It is about world empires built and held with almost contemptuous ease by small bodies of Europeans which were to last barely a human lifetime, and a European domination of world history, which was never more confident than at the moment it was about to disappear for ever. It is about Queen Victoria, Madame Curie and the Kodak Girl, and the novel social world of cloth caps, golf clubs and brassieres, about Nietzsche, Carnegie, William Morris and Dreyfus, about politically ineffective terrorists, one of whom, to his and everyone's surprise, started a world war.With the AGE OF EMPIRE, Eric Hobsbawm, Britain's leading historian of the left, brings to a dazzling climax his brilliant interpretative history of 'the long nineteenth century'.
Age Of Empire: 1875-1914
by Prof Eric HobsbawmTHE AGE OF EMPIRE is a book about the strange death of the nineteenth century, the world made by and for liberal middle classes in the name of universal progress and civilisation. It is about hopes realised which turned into fears: an era of unparalleled peace engendering an era of unparalleled war; revolt and revolution emerging on the outskirts of society; a time of profound identity crisis for bourgeois classes, among new and sudden mass labour movements which rejected capitalism and new middle classes which rejected liberalism. It is about world empires built and held with almost contemptuous ease by small bodies of Europeans which were to last barely a human lifetime, and a European domination of world history, which was never more confident than at the moment it was about to disappear for ever. It is about Queen Victoria, Madame Curie and the Kodak Girl, and the novel social world of cloth caps, golf clubs and brassieres, about Nietzsche, Carnegie, William Morris and Dreyfus, about politically ineffective terrorists, one of whom, to his and everyone's surprise, started a world war.With the AGE OF EMPIRE, Eric Hobsbawm, Britain's leading historian of the left, brings to a dazzling climax his brilliant interpretative history of 'the long nineteenth century'.
Age Of Fracture
by Daniel T. RodgersIn the last quarter of the twentieth century, the ideas that most Americans lived by started to fragment. Mid-century concepts of national consensus, managed markets, gender and racial identities, citizen obligation, and historical memory became more fluid. Flexible markets pushed aside Keynesian macroeconomic structures. Racial and gender solidarity divided into multiple identities; community responsibility shrank to smaller circles. In this wide-ranging narrative, Daniel Rodgers shows how the collective purposes and meanings that had framed social debate became unhinged and uncertain. Age of Fracture offers a powerful reinterpretation of the ways in which the decades surrounding the 1980s changed America. Through a contagion of visions and metaphors, on both the intellectual right and the intellectual left, earlier notions of history and society that stressed solidity, collective institutions, and social circumstances gave way to a more individualized human nature that emphasized choice, agency, performance, and desire. On a broad canvas that includes Michel Foucault, Ronald Reagan, Judith Butler, Charles Murray, Jeffrey Sachs, and many more, Rodgers explains how structures of power came to seem less important than market choice and fluid selves. Cutting across the social and political arenas of late-twentieth-century life and thought, from economic theory and the culture wars to disputes over poverty, color-blindness, and sisterhood, Rodgers reveals how our categories of social reality have been fractured and destabilized. As we survey the intellectual wreckage of this war of ideas, we better understand the emergence of our present age of uncertainty.
Age Of Revolution: 1789-1848
by Eric HobsbawmThe first in Eric Hobsbawm's dazzling trilogy on the history of the nineteenth century.Between 1789 and 1848 the world was transformed both by the French Revolution and also by the Industrial Revolution that originated in Britain. This 'Dual Revolution' created the modern world as we know it.Eric Hobsbawm traces with brilliant analytical clarity the transformation brought about in every sphere of European life by the Dual Revolution - in the conduct of war and diplomacy; in new industrial areas and on the land; among peasantry, bourgeoisie and aristocracy; in methods of government and of revolution; in science, philosophy and religion; in literature and the arts. But above all he sees this as the period when industrial capitalism established the domination over the rest of the world it was to hold for a century.Eric Hobsbawm's enthralling and original account is an impassioned but objective history of the most significant sixty years in the history of Europe.
Age Of Revolution: 1789-1848
by Prof Eric HobsbawmThe first in Eric Hobsbawm's dazzling trilogy on the history of the nineteenth century.Between 1789 and 1848 the world was transformed both by the French Revolution and also by the Industrial Revolution that originated in Britain. This 'Dual Revolution' created the modern world as we know it.Eric Hobsbawm traces with brilliant analytical clarity the transformation brought about in every sphere of European life by the Dual Revolution - in the conduct of war and diplomacy; in new industrial areas and on the land; among peasantry, bourgeoisie and aristocracy; in methods of government and of revolution; in science, philosophy and religion; in literature and the arts. But above all he sees this as the period when industrial capitalism established the domination over the rest of the world it was to hold for a century.Eric Hobsbawm's enthralling and original account is an impassioned but objective history of the most significant sixty years in the history of Europe.
Age and Identity in Eighteenth-Century England ("The Body, Gender and Culture" #11)
by Helen YallopYallop looks at how people in eighteenth-century England understood and dealt with growing older. Though no word for ‘aging’ existed at this time, a person’s age was a significant aspect of their identity.
Age in America: The Colonial Era to the Present (Gender And American Culture Ser.)
by Nicholas L. Syrett Corinne T. FieldEighteen. Twenty-one. Sixty-five. In America today, we recognize these numbers as key transitions in our lives—precise moments when our rights and opportunities change—when we become eligible to cast a vote, buy a drink, or enroll in Medicare. This volume brings together scholars of childhood, adulthood, and old age to explore how and why particular ages have come to define the rights and obligations of American citizens. Since the founding of the nation, Americans have relied on chronological age to determine matters as diverse as who can marry, work, be enslaved, drive a car, or qualify for a pension. Contributors to this volume explore what meanings people in the past ascribed to specific ages and whether or not earlier Americans believed the same things about particular ages as we do. The means by which Americans imposed chronological boundaries upon the variable process of growing up and growing old offers a paradigmatic example of how people construct cultural meaning and social hierarchy from embodied experience. Further, chronological age always intersects with other socially constructed categories such as gender, race, and sexuality. Ranging from the seventeenth century to the present, taking up a variety of distinct subcultures—from frontier children and antebellum slaves to twentieth-century Latinas—Age in America makes a powerful case that age has always been a key index of citizenship.
Age in Love: Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Court (Early Modern Cultural Studies)
by Jacqueline VanhoutteThe title Age in Love is taken from Shakespeare’s sonnet 138, a poem about an aging male speaker who, by virtue of his entanglement with the dark lady, “vainly” performs the role of “some untutor’d youth.” Jacqueline Vanhoutte argues that this pattern of “age in love” pervades Shakespeare’s mature works, informing his experiments in all the dramatic genres. Bottom, Malvolio, Claudius, Falstaff, and Antony all share with the sonnet speaker a tendency to flout generational decorum by assuming the role of the lover, normally reserved in Renaissance culture for young men. Hybrids and upstarts, cross-dressers and shape-shifters, comic butts and tragic heroes—Shakespeare’s old-men-in-love turn in boundary-blurring performances that probe the gendered and generational categories by which early modern subjects conceived of identity. In Age in Love Vanhoutte shows that questions we have come to regard as quintessentially Shakespearean—about the limits of social mobility, the nature of political authority, the transformative powers of the theater, the vagaries of human memory, or the possibility of secular immortality—come to indelible expression through Shakespeare’s artful deployment of the “age in love” trope. Age in Love contributes to the ongoing debate about the emergence of a Tudor public sphere, building on the current interest in premodern constructions of aging and ultimately demonstrating that the Elizabethan court shaped Shakespeare’s plays in unexpected and previously undocumented ways.
Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China
by Evan OsnosWinner of the 2014 National Book Award in nonfiction. An Economist Best Book of 2014. A vibrant, colorful, and revelatory inner history of China during a moment of profound transformation From abroad, we often see China as a caricature: a nation of pragmatic plutocrats and ruthlessly dedicated students destined to rule the global economy-or an addled Goliath, riddled with corruption and on the edge of stagnation. What we don't see is how both powerful and ordinary people are remaking their lives as their country dramatically changes  As the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, Evan Osnos was on the ground in China for years, witness to profound political, economic, and cultural upheaval. In Age of Ambition, he describes the greatest collision taking place in that country: the clash between the rise of the individual and the Communist Party's struggle to retain control. He asks probing questions: Why does a government with more success lifting people from poverty than any civilization in history choose to put strict restraints on freedom of expression? Why do millions of young Chinese professionals-fluent in English and devoted to Western pop culture-consider themselves "angry youth," dedicated to resisting the West's influence? How are Chinese from all strata finding meaning after two decades of the relentless pursuit of wealth? Writing with great narrative verve and a keen sense of irony, Osnos follows the moving stories of everyday people and reveals life in the new China to be a battleground between aspiration and authoritarianism, in which only one can prevail.
Age of Anger: A History of the Present
by Pankaj MishraOne of our most important public intellectuals reveals the hidden history of our current global crisisHow can we explain the origins of the great wave of paranoid hatreds that seem inescapable in our close-knit world—from American shooters and ISIS to Donald Trump, from a rise in vengeful nationalism across the world to racism and misogyny on social media? In Age of Anger, Pankaj Mishra answers our bewilderment by casting his gaze back to the eighteenth century before leading us to the present.He shows that as the world became modern, those who were unable to enjoy its promises—of freedom, stability, and prosperity—were increasingly susceptible to demagogues. The many who came late to this new world—or were left, or pushed, behind—reacted in horrifyingly similar ways: with intense hatred of invented enemies, attempts to re-create an imaginary golden age, and self-empowerment through spectacular violence. It was from among the ranks of the disaffected that the militants of the nineteenth century arose—angry young men who became cultural nationalists in Germany, messianic revolutionaries in Russia, bellicose chauvinists in Italy, and anarchist terrorists internationally.Today, just as then, the wide embrace of mass politics and technology and the pursuit of wealth and individualism have cast many more billions adrift in a demoralized world, uprooted from tradition but still far from modernity—with the same terrible results.Making startling connections and comparisons, Age of Anger is a book of immense urgency and profound argument. It is a history of our present predicament unlike any other.
Age of Anxiety, The: Security and Politics in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia
by Mark GaleottiThe geography of Russia -- vast, unwieldy, exposed -- and her tragic history of foreign invasion have created an overriding sense of military vulnerability amongst her leaders that, after the horrors of the Second World War, amounted almost to paranoia. This important study of the years since Brezhnev shows how this obsession with national security have been at the core of Russian thinking right through the reforms of the Gorbachev era and the eventual collapse of the USSR, and continues to dominate the turbulent politics of post-Soviet Russia today.
Age of Assassins: (The Wounded Kingdom Book 1) To catch an assassin, use an assassin... (The Wounded Kingdom #1)
by RJ Barker***Look out for The Bone Ships, the start of a new fantasy series by RJ Barker!***'Age of Assassins reveals its mysteries with the style of a magic show and the artful grace of a gifted storyteller' Nicholas Eames, author of Kings of the WyldTO CATCH AN ASSASSIN, USE AN ASSASSIN...Girton Club-Foot, apprentice to the land's best assassin, still has much to learn about the art of taking lives. But his latest mission tasks Girton and his master with a far more difficult challenge: to save a life. Someone, or many someones, is trying to kill the heir to the throne, and it is up to Girton and his master to uncover the traitor and prevent the prince's murder. In a kingdom on the brink of civil war and a castle thick with lies Girton finds friends he never expected, responsibilities he never wanted, and a conspiracy that could destroy an entire land.***SHORTLISTED FOR THE DAVID GEMMELL AWARDS 2018******SHORTLISTED FOR THE KITSCHIE AWARDS 2018***'Dead gods, dread magic, and a lead that feels like a breath of fresh air. Great fun' Peter Newman, author of The Vagrant'Outstanding. Beautifully written, perfectly paced and assured. Kept me reading well into the early hours of the morning. A wonderful first book - a wonderful book, period - that should be at the very top of your to-read list' James Islington, author of The Shadow of what was Lost 'Simply unputdownable . . . the perfect mix of fantasy and mystery' Fantasy Book Review 'With an original, immersive world that wouldn't let me go and a pair of assassins worth rooting for, Age of Assassins is a pleasure to read. I can't wait for more!' Melissa Caruso, author of The Tethered Mage 'A dark-humored game of cat and mouse between assassins, with traitors on all sides' David Dalglish, author of the Shadowdance series 'Age of Assassins builds a compelling fantasy world and peoples it with characters you can care about. Riddled with intrigue and dangerous magic, this is a hugely enjoyable debut' Jen Williams, author of The Copper Promise 'Age of Assassins is a beguiling story of action and intrigue combined with a poignancy and humour that are as sharp as any blade' Jon Skovron, author of Hope and Red'Compellingly complex political intrigue and steel-sparking action sequences leavened by warm humour and genuine emotional depth' Chris Brookmyre, author of the Jack Parlabane novelsThe Wounded Kingdom trilogy begins with AGE OF ASSASSINS, continues with BLOOD OF ASSASSINS and will continue with KING OF ASSASSINS.
Age of Assassins: (The Wounded Kingdom Book 1) To catch an assassin, use an assassin... (The Wounded Kingdom #1)
by RJ Barker***Look out for The Bone Ships, the start of a new fantasy series by RJ Barker!***'Age of Assassins reveals its mysteries with the style of a magic show and the artful grace of a gifted storyteller' Nicholas Eames, author of Kings of the WyldTO CATCH AN ASSASSIN, USE AN ASSASSIN...Girton Club-Foot, apprentice to the land's best assassin, still has much to learn about the art of taking lives. But his latest mission tasks Girton and his master with a far more difficult challenge: to save a life. Someone, or many someones, is trying to kill the heir to the throne, and it is up to Girton and his master to uncover the traitor and prevent the prince's murder. In a kingdom on the brink of civil war and a castle thick with lies Girton finds friends he never expected, responsibilities he never wanted, and a conspiracy that could destroy an entire land.***SHORTLISTED FOR THE DAVID GEMMELL AWARDS 2018******SHORTLISTED FOR THE KITSCHIE AWARDS 2018***'Dead gods, dread magic, and a lead that feels like a breath of fresh air. Great fun' Peter Newman, author of The Vagrant'Outstanding. Beautifully written, perfectly paced and assured. Kept me reading well into the early hours of the morning. A wonderful first book - a wonderful book, period - that should be at the very top of your to-read list' James Islington, author of The Shadow of what was Lost 'Simply unputdownable . . . the perfect mix of fantasy and mystery' Fantasy Book Review 'With an original, immersive world that wouldn't let me go and a pair of assassins worth rooting for, Age of Assassins is a pleasure to read. I can't wait for more!' Melissa Caruso, author of The Tethered Mage 'A dark-humored game of cat and mouse between assassins, with traitors on all sides' David Dalglish, author of the Shadowdance series 'Age of Assassins builds a compelling fantasy world and peoples it with characters you can care about. Riddled with intrigue and dangerous magic, this is a hugely enjoyable debut' Jen Williams, author of The Copper Promise 'Age of Assassins is a beguiling story of action and intrigue combined with a poignancy and humour that are as sharp as any blade' Jon Skovron, author of Hope and Red'Compellingly complex political intrigue and steel-sparking action sequences leavened by warm humour and genuine emotional depth' Chris Brookmyre, author of the Jack Parlabane novelsThe Wounded Kingdom trilogy begins with AGE OF ASSASSINS, continues with BLOOD OF ASSASSINS and will continue with KING OF ASSASSINS.
Age of Auto Electric: Environment, Energy, and the Quest for the Sustainable Car (Transformations: Studies in the History of Science and Technology)
by Matthew N. EislerThe electric vehicle revival reflects negotiations between public policy, which promotes clean, fuel-efficient vehicles, and the auto industry, which promotes high-performance vehicles.Electric cars were once as numerous as internal combustion engine cars before all but vanishing from American roads around World War I. Now, we are in the midst of an electric vehicle revival, and the goal for a sustainable car seems to be within reach. In Age of Auto Electric, Matthew N. Eisler shows that the halting development of the electric car in the intervening decades was a consequence of tensions between environmental, energy, and economic policy imperatives that informed a protracted reappraisal of the automobile system. These factors drove the electric vehicle revival, argues Eisler, hastening automaking&’s transformation into a science-based industry in the process.Challenging the common assumption that the electric vehicle revival is due to the development of better batteries, Age of Auto Electric instead focuses on changing environmental and socioeconomic conditions, energy and environmental policies, systems of energy conversion and industrial production, and innovation practices that affected the prevalence and popularity of electric vehicles in recent decades. Eisler describes a world in transition from legacy to alternative energy-conversion systems and the promises, compromises, new problems, and unintended consequences that enterprise has entailed.
Age of Betrayal: The Triumph Of Money In America, 1865-1900
by Jack BeattyA senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly, Beatty tells how, having redeemed democracy during the Civil War, America betrayed it during the Gilded Age. That time, he says, saw the birth of the plutocracy and inequality that rules the country a century later. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc. , Portland, OR (booknews. com)
Age of Cage: Four Decades of Hollywood Through One Singular Career
by Keith Phipps“Age of Cage might be the closest we will get to understanding the singular beauty of each of Nic Cage’s always electric performances. You are holding the Rosetta Stone for Cage. Enjoy it.”—Paul Scheer, actor, writer and host of the How Did This Get Made? and Unspooled podcastsIcon. Celebrity. Artist. Madman. Genius. Nicolas Cage is many things, but love him, or laugh at him, there's no denying two things: you’ve seen one of his many films, and you certainly know his name. But who is he, really, and why has his career endured for over forty years, with more than a hundred films, and birthed a million memes?Age of Cage is a smart, beguiling book about the films of Nicolas Cage and the actor himself, as well as a sharp-eyed examination of the changes that have taken place in Hollywood over the course of his career. Critic and journalist Keith Phipps draws a portrait of the enigmatic icon by looking at—what else?—Cage’s expansive filmography.As Phipps delights in charting Cage’s films, Age of Cage also chronicles the transformation of film, as Cage’s journey takes him through the world of 1980s comedies (Valley Girl, Peggy Sue Got Married, Moonstruck), to the indie films and blockbuster juggernauts of the 1990s (Wild at Heart, Leaving Las Vegas, Face/Off, Con Air), through the wild and unpredictable video-on-demand world of today. Sweeping in scope and intimate in its profile of a fiercely passionate artist, Age of Cage is, like the man himself, surprising, insightful, funny, and one of a kind. So, snap out of it, and enjoy this appreciation of Nicolas Cage, national treasure.
Age of Coexistence: The Ecumenical Frame and the Making of the Modern Arab World
by Ussama MakdisiToday’s headlines paint the Middle East as a collection of war-torn countries and extremist groups consumed by sectarian rage. Ussama Makdisi’s Age of Coexistence reveals a hidden and hopeful story that counters this clichéd portrayal. It shows how a region rich with ethnic and religious diversity created a modern culture of coexistence amid Ottoman reformation, European colonialism, and the emergence of nationalism. Moving from the nineteenth century to the present, this groundbreaking book explores, without denial or equivocation, the politics of pluralism during the Ottoman Empire and in the post-Ottoman Arab world. Rather than judging the Arab world as a place of age-old sectarian animosities, Age of Coexistence describes the forging of a complex system of coexistence, what Makdisi calls the “ecumenical frame.” He argues that new forms of antisectarian politics, and some of the most important examples of Muslim-Christian political collaboration, crystallized to make and define the modern Arab world. Despite massive challenges and setbacks, and despite the persistence of colonialism and authoritarianism, this framework for coexistence has endured for nearly a century. It is a reminder that religious diversity does not automatically lead to sectarianism. Instead, as Makdisi demonstrates, people of different faiths, but not necessarily of different political outlooks, have consistently tried to build modern societies that transcend religious and sectarian differences.
Age of Confidence: Celebrating Twenty Years of Jewish Renaissance
by Howard Jacobson Rebecca Taylor David BenmayerTaking the terrorist attacks of 9/11 as their starting point, five new essays look at how Jewish culture has changed over the past two decades. Covering music (Vanessa Paloma Elbaz), art (Monica Bohm Duchen), literature (Bryan Cheyette), theatre (Judi Herman) and film (Nathan Abrams), the essays explore the role of confidence in the cultural output of minority communities, and ask whether the trends identified look set to continue over the coming years.Commissioned to mark the twentieth anniversary of Jewish Renaissance magazine, the book includes a foreword by Howard Jacobson and is interspersed with a selection of the best articles from the magazine’s archive, including pieces by the director Mike Leigh, author Linda Grant and sociologist Keith Kahn-Harris.
Age of Contradiction: American Thought and Culture in the 1960s
by Howard BrickIn Age of Contradiction, Howard Brick provides a rich context for understanding historical events, cultural tensions, political figures, artistic works, and trends of intellectual life. His lucid and comprehensive book combines the best methods of historical analysis and assessment with fascinating subject matter to create a three-dimensional portrait of a complicated time. In one of the only books on the 1960s to put ideas at the center of the period's history, Brick carefully explores the dilemmas, the promise, and the legacy of American thought in that time.
Age of Danger: Keeping America Safe in an Era of New Superpowers, New Weapons, and New Threats
by Andrew Hoehn Thom ShankerAn urgent look at how America's national security machine went astray and how it fails to keep us safe—and what we can do to fix it. Again and again, American taxpayers are asked to open their wallets and pay for a national security machine that costs $1 trillion operate. Yet time and time again, the US government gets it wrong on critical issues. So what can be done? Enter bestselling author Thom Shanker and defense expert Andrew Hoehn. With decades of national security expertise between them and access to virtually every expert, they look at what&’s going wrong in national security and how to make it go right. Age of Danger looks at the major challenges facing America—from superpowers like Russia and China to emerging threats like pandemics, cybersecurity, climate change, and drones—and reimagines the national security apparatus into something that can truly keep Americans safe. Weaving together expert analysis with exclusive interviews from a new generation of national security leaders, Shanker and Hoehn argue that the United States must create an industrial-grade, life-saving machine out of a system that, for too long, was focused only on deterring adversaries and carrying out global military operations. It is a timely and crucial call to action—a call that if heeded, could save Americans lives, money, and our very future on the global stage.