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The End of Physiotherapy: Critical Physiotherapy For The Twenty-first Century (Routledge Advances In Health And Social Policy Ser.)
by David A. NichollsPhysiotherapy is arriving at a critical point in its history. Since World War I, physiotherapy has been one of the largest allied health professions and the established provider of orthodox physical rehabilitation. But ageing populations of increasingly chronically ill people, a growing scepticism towards biomedicine and the changing economy of healthcare threaten physiotherapy’s long-held status. Paradoxically, physiotherapy’s affinity for treating the ‘body-as-machine’ has resulted in an almost complete inability to identify the roots of the profession’s present problems, or define possible ways forward. Physiotherapists need to engage in critically informed theoretical discussion about the profession’s past, present and future - to explore their practice from economic, philosophical, political and sociological perspectives. The End of Physiotherapy aims to explain how physiotherapy has arrived at this critical point in its history, and to point to a new future for the profession. The book draws on critical analyses of the historical and social conditions that have made present-day physiotherapy possible. Nicholls examines some of the key discourses that have had a positive impact on the profession in the past, but now threaten to derail it. This book makes it possible for physiotherapists to think otherwise about their profession and their day-to-day practice. It will be essential reading for scholars and students of physiotherapy, interprofessional and community rehabilitation, as well as appealing to those working in medical sociology, the medical humanities, medical history and health care policy.
The End of Policing
by Alex S. VitaleHow the police endanger us and why we need to find an alternativeRecent years have seen an explosion of protest against police brutality and repression—most dramatically in Ferguson, Missouri, where longheld grievances erupted in violent demonstrations following the police killing of Michael Brown. Among activists, journalists, and politicians, the conversation about how to respond and improve policing has focused on accountability, diversity, training, and community relations. Unfortunately, these reforms will not produce results, either alone or in combination. The core of the problem must be addressed: the nature of modern policing itself. “Broken windows” practices, the militarization of law enforcement, and the dramatic expansion of the police’s role over the last forty years have created a mandate for officers that must be rolled back. This book attempts to spark public discussion by revealing the tainted origins of modern policing as a tool of social control. It shows how the expansion of police authority is inconsistent with community empowerment, social justice—even public safety. Drawing on groundbreaking research from across the world, and covering virtually every area in the increasingly broad range of police work, Alex Vitale demonstrates how law enforcement has come to exacerbate the very problems it is supposed to solve. In contrast, there are places where the robust implementation of policing alternatives—such as legalization, restorative justice, and harm reduction—has led to reductions in crime, spending, and injustice. The best solution to bad policing may be an end to policing.
The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time
by Jeffrey D. SachsCelebrated economist Jeffrey Sachs has a plan to eliminate extreme poverty around the world by 2025. If you think that is too ambitious or wildly unrealistic, you need to read this book. His focus is on the one billion poorest individuals around the world who are caught in a poverty trap of disease, physical isolation, environmental stress, political instability, and lack of access to capital, technology, medicine, and education.
The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time
by Jeffrey D. SachsJeffrey D. Sachs has been cited by The New York Times Magazine as “probably the most important economist in the world” and by Time as “the world’s best-known economist. ” He has advised an extraordinary range of world leaders and international institutions on the full range of issues related to creating economic success and reducing the world’s poverty and misery. Now, at last, he draws on his entire twenty-five-year body of experience to offer a thrilling and inspiring big-picture vision of the keys to economic success in the world today and the steps that are necessary to achieve prosperity for all. Marrying vivid eyewitness storytelling to his laserlike analysis, Jeffrey Sachs sets the stage by drawing a vivid conceptual map of the world economy and the different categories into which countries fall. Then, in a tour de force of elegance and compression, he explains why, over the past two hundred years, wealth has diverged across the planet in the manner that it has and why the poorest nations have been so markedly unable to escape the cruel vortex of poverty. The groundwork laid, he explains his methods for arriving, like a clinical internist, at a holistic diagnosis of a country’s situation and the options it faces. Rather than deliver a worldview to readers from on high, Sachs leads them along the learning path he himself followed, telling the remarkable stories of his own work in Bolivia, Poland, Russia, India, China, and Africa as a way to bring readers to a broad-based understanding of the array of issues countries can face and the way the issues interrelate. He concludes by drawing on everything he has learned to offer an integrated set of solutions to the interwoven economic, political, environmental, and social problems that most frequently hold societies back. In the end, he leaves readers with an understanding, not of how daunting the world’s problems are, but how solvable they are—and why making the effort is a matter both of moral obligation and strategic self-interest. A work of profound moral and intellectual vision that grows out of unprecedented real-world experience, The End of Poverty is a road map to a safer, more prosperous future for the world. .
The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn’t What It Used to Be
by Moises NaimWe know that power is shifting: From West to East and North to South, from presidential palaces to public squares, from once formidable corporate behemoths to nimble startups and, slowly but surely, from men to women. But power is not merely shifting and dispersing. It is also decaying. Those in power today are more constrained in what they can do with it and more at risk of losing it than ever before. <P><P> In The End of Power, award-winning columnist and former Foreign Policy editor Moisés Naím illuminates the struggle between once-dominant megaplayers and the new micropowers challenging them in every field of human endeavor. Drawing on provocative, original research, Naím shows how the antiestablishment drive of micropowers can topple tyrants, dislodge monopolies, and open remarkable new opportunities, but it can also lead to chaos and paralysis. Naím deftly covers the seismic changes underway in business, religion, education, within families, and in all matters of war and peace. Examples abound in all walks of life: In 1977, eighty-nine countries were ruled by autocrats while today more than half the world’s population lives in democracies. CEO’s are more constrained and have shorter tenures than their predecessors. Modern tools of war, cheaper and more accessible, make it possible for groups like Hezbollah to afford their own drones. In the second half of 2010, the top ten hedge funds earned more than the world’s largest six banks combined. <P> Those in power retain it by erecting powerful barriers to keep challengers at bay. Today, insurgent forces dismantle those barriers more quickly and easily than ever, only to find that they themselves become vulnerable in the process. Accessible and captivating, Naím offers a revolutionary look at the inevitable end of power—and how it will change your world.<P> Chosen for Mark Zuckerberg's "A Year of Books"
The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America
by Coleman HughesAn exciting new voice makes the case for a colorblind approach to politics and culture, warning that the so-called &‘anti-racist&’ movement is driving us—ironically—toward a new kind of racism.As one of the few black students in his philosophy program at Columbia University years ago, Coleman Hughes wondered why his peers seemed more pessimistic about the state of American race relations than his own grandparents–who lived through segregation. The End of Race Politics is the culmination of his years-long search for an answer.Contemplative yet audacious, The End of Race Politics is necessary reading for anyone who questions the race orthodoxies of our time. Hughes argues for a return to the ideals that inspired the American Civil Rights movement, showing how our departure from the colorblind ideal has ushered in a new era of fear, paranoia, and resentment marked by draconian interpersonal etiquette, failed corporate diversity and inclusion efforts, and poisonous race-based policies that hurt the very people they intend to help. Hughes exposes the harmful side effects of Kendi-DiAngelo style antiracism, from programs that distribute emergency aid on the basis of race to revisionist versions of American history that hide the truth from the public.Through careful argument, Hughes dismantles harmful beliefs about race, proving that reverse racism will not atone for past wrongs and showing why race-based policies will lead only to the illusion of racial equity. By fixating on race, we lose sight of what it really means to be anti-racist. A racially just, colorblind society is possible. Hughes gives us the intellectual tools to make it happen.
The End of San Francisco
by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore"Mattilda is a dazzling writer of uncommon truths, a challenging writer who refuses to conform to conventionality. Her agitation is an inspiration."-Justin Torres, author of We the Animals"Author Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is the artistic love child of John Genet and David Wojnarowicz, deconstructing language swathed in unbridled sensuality, while flinging readers into a disrupted, chaotic life of queer anarchy."-- Gay and Lesbian ReviewThe End of San Francisco breaks apart the conventions of memoir to reveal the passions and perils of a life that refuses to conform to the rules of straight or gay normalcy. A budding queer activist escapes to San Francisco, in search of a world more politically charged, sexually saturated, and ethically consistent-this is the person who evolves into Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, infamous radical queer troublemaker, organizer and agitator, community builder, and anti-assimilationist commentator. Here is the tender, provocative, and exuberant story of the formation of one of the contemporary queer movement's most savvy and outrageous writers and spokespersons.Using an unrestrained associative style to move kaleidoscopically between past, present, and future, Sycamore conjures the untidy push and pull of memory, exposing the tensions between idealism and critical engagement, trauma and self-actualization, inspiration and loss. Part memoir, part social history, and part elegy, The End of San Francisco explores and explodes the dream of a radical queer community and the mythical city that was supposed to nurture it.Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is the editor of four anthologies, including Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots, That's Revolting, and Nobody Passes, and two novels."Bring on The End of San Francisco! And Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, whose new book has reinvented memoir without the predictable gloss of passive resolution. This book is undeniably brave and new, and the internal energy churning at its core is like nothing you've seen, heard or read before. I swear."-T Cooper, author of Real Man Adventures
The End of Solitude: Selected Essays on Culture and Society
by William DeresiewiczA passionate, probing collection gathering nearly thirty years of groundbreaking reflection on culture and society alongside four new essays, by one of our most respected essayists and critics.What is the internet doing to us? What is college for? What are the myths and metaphors we live by? These are the questions that William Deresiewicz has been pursuing over the course of his award-winning career. The End of Solitude brings together more than forty of his finest essays, including four that are published here for the first time. Ranging widely across the culture, they take up subjects as diverse as Mad Men and Harold Bloom, the significance of the hipster, and the purpose of art. Drawing on the past, they ask how we got where we are. Scrutinizing the present, they seek to understand how we can live more mindfully and freely, and they pose two fundamental questions: What does it mean to be an individual, and how can we sustain our individuality in an age of networks and groups?
The End of Stigma?: Changes in the Social Experience of Long-Term Illness
by Gill GreenThis innovative book investigates the roots of contemporary experiences of stigma, throwing new light on the phenomenon by examining a variety of long-term conditions. Behaviour, lifestyle and identity are no longer the results of mass-production by social class and nation, but increasingly the quirky and unique eccentricities of the individual as consumer, reflexive citizen and free agent. But if the hallmark of the post-modern world is endless variety and unlimited sub-cultural freedom, should we not be witnessing "The End of Stigma"? The book takes Fukuyama’s notion of "The End of History" and examines contemporary challenges to the stigma associated with chronic illness. Award-winning author Gill Green examines cases of HIV, mental illness and substance misuse, to provide new insights into stigma in health. She demonstrates that people with long-term conditions refuse to be defined by their condition and highlights their increasingly powerful voice. The End of Stigma? will be of interest to a wide range of students and health professionals in medical sociology, health studies and social care.
The End of Territoriality?: The Impact of ECJ Rulings on British, German and French Social Policy
by Andreas J. ObermaierThrough analyzing the implementation of a series of European Court of Justice rulings in the key member states of Germany, France and the UK, The End of Territoriality brings the high impact issue of policy changes to the foreground. The time sequencing of such changes is traced and scrutinized through a detailed investigation by Obermaier, followed by a comprehensive illustration on the full impact the policy amendments have had on the welfare states. By drawing extensively on original sources and new material, this volume will be of key interest to those studying and working within social policy, welfare, political sociology, and European law.
The End of This World: Climate Justice in So-Called Canada
by Emily Eaton Angele Alook David Gray-Donald Joël Laforest Crystal Lameman Bronwen TuckerThe climate crisis is here, and the end of this world—a world built on land theft, resource extraction, and colonial genocide—is on the horizon. In this compelling roadmap to a livable future, Indigenous sovereignty and climate justice go hand in hand. Drawing on their work in Indigenous activism, the labour movement, youth climate campaigns, community-engaged scholarship, and independent journalism, the six authors challenge toothless proposals and false solutions to show that a just transition from fossil fuels cannot succeed without the dismantling of settler capitalism in Canada. Together, they envision a near future where oil and gas stay in the ground; where a caring economy provides social supports for all; where wealth is redistributed from the bloated billionaire class; and where stolen land is rightfully reclaimed under the jurisdiction and sovereignty of Indigenous peoples. Packed with clear-eyed analysis of both short- and long-term strategies for radical social change, The End of This World promises that the next world is within reach and worth fighting for.
The End of Transgression in Japanese Women’s Writing: Gender, Body, Nation
by David S. HollowayThis book argues for a new articulation of the ways in which transgression is theorized in contemporary literature by Japanese women.Exploring the rhetorical and discursive mechanics of literary “bad girls” from fiction produced during the millennial turn (1990–2010), the book contends that women writers today deploy truant, unruly, restless, and aggressive female protagonists not to challenge the status quo but rather to reaffirm it. While Japanese women’s fiction has long been invested in cultivating an uncomfortable politics of opposition through “unladylike” themes such as sex, sexuality, and violence, the book argues that today authors turn to such acts of defiance to quietly advocate for the primacy of Japanese social order. Showing how transgression has not only lost its political and disruptive valence in contemporary women’s fiction, this book further reveals how discourses of dissent can be retooled to promote a conservative worldview.A fascinating literary analysis which reads Japanese literature in relation to the receding value of rebellion today, this book will be of huge interest to students and scholars of Japanese literature, gender, and cultural studies.
The End of Two Illusions: Islam after the West
by Hamid DabashiDismantling the myths that divide Islam and the West, this cutting-edge work of critical thinking proposes new ways to reread Islamic and world histories. Extending from the front-page news coverage of our daily lives back into the deepest and most revelatory histories of the last two hundred years and earlier, Hamid Dabashi's The End of Two Illusions is a daring, provocative, and groundbreaking work that dismantles the most dangerous delusions manufactured between two vastly fetishized abstractions: "Islam" and "the West." With this book, Dabashi shows how the civilizational divides imagined between these two cosmic binaries have defined their entanglement—in ways that have nothing to do with the lived experiences of either Muslims or the diverse and changing communities scarcely held together by the myth of "the West." Through detailed historical and contemporary analysis, The End of Two Illusions untangles the motivations that produced this global fiction. Dabashi demonstrates how "the West" was an ideological commodity and civilizational mantra invented during the European Enlightenment, serving as an epicenter for the rise of globalized capitalist modernity. In turn, Orientalist ideologues went around the world manufacturing equally illusory abstractions in the form of inferior civilizations in India, China, Africa, Latin America, and the Islamic world. The result was the projection of "Islam and the West" as the prototype of a civilizational hostility that has given false explanations and flawed prognoses of our contemporary history, with weaponized Islamophobia on one side and militant Islamism on the other as its most palpable manifestations. Dabashi argues it is long past time to dismantle this dangerous liaison, expose and overcome its perilous delusions, and reimagine the world beyond its shimmering mirage. The End of Two Illusions is the most iconoclastic work of critical thought and scholarship to emerge in recent memory, clearing the way toward a far more liberating imaginative geography of the world we share.
The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation
by Tom EngelhardtIn a substantial new afterword to his classic account of the collapse of American triumphalism in the wake of World War II, Tom Engelhardt carries that story into the twenty-first century. He explores how, in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the younger George Bush headed for the Wild West (Osama bin Laden, "Wanted, Dead of Alive"); how his administration brought "victory culture" roaring back as part of its Global War on Terror and its rush to invade Saddam Husseins's Iraq; and how, from its "Mission Accomplished" moment on, its various stories of triumph crashed and burned in that land.
The End of War
by John HorganWar is a fact of human nature. As long as we exist, it exists. That's how the argument goes.But longtime Scientific American writer John Horgan disagrees. Applying the scientific method to war leads Horgan to a radical conclusion: biologically speaking, we are just as likely to be peaceful as violent. War is not preordained, and furthermore, it should be thought of as a solvable, scientific problem-like curing cancer. But war and cancer differ in at least one crucial way: whereas cancer is a stubborn aspect of nature, war is our creation. It's our choice whether to unmake it or not.In this compact, methodical treatise, Horgan examines dozens of examples and counterexamples-discussing chimpanzees and bonobos, warring and peaceful indigenous people, the World War I and Vietnam, Margaret Mead and General Sherman-as he finds his way to war's complicated origins. Horgan argues for a far-reaching paradigm shift with profound implications for policy students, ethicists, military men and women, teachers, philosophers, or really, any engaged citizen.
The End of Welfare?: Consequences of Federal Devolution for the Nation
by Max B. SawickyExploring the consequences of federal devolution on state budgets, this work deals with three major areas of concern: the effect of moving large numbers of welfare recipients into labour markets; the planned federal reforms in the health care field; and trends in federal aid.
The End of White World Supremacy: Four Speeches
by Malcolm XMalcolm X gave black Americans not only their consciousness, but their history, their dignity, and a new pride. No single individual can claim a more important responsibility for a sociological and historical leap forward such as the one sparked in America in the 1960s. In 1965, when Malcolm X was gunned down on the stage of a Harlem theater, America lost one of its eminent political thinkers. Here in his own words are the revolutionary ideas that made Malcolm X one of the most charismatic and influential African-American leaders in American history. They are the thoughts of a determined leader during a turbulent, sometimes impossible time, and are invaluable in understanding not only the historical context of the Civil Rights movement but also contemporary identity and culture in the United States. These speeches document Malcolm's progression from Black nationalism to internationalism, and are key to both understanding his extraordinary life and illuminating his angry yet uplifting cause.
The End of White World Supremacy: Four Speeches
by Malcolm XThe classic collection of major speeches, now bundled with an audio download of Malcolm X delivering two of them. Malcolm X remains a touchstone figure for black America and in American culture at large. He gave African Americans not only their consciousness but their history, dignity, and a new pride. No single individual can claim more important responsibility for a social and historical leap forward such as the one sparked in America in the sixties. When, in 1965, Malcolm X was gunned down on the stage of a Harlem theater, America lost one of its most dynamic political thinkers. Yet, as Michael Eric Dyson has observed, &“he remains relevant because he spoke presciently to the issues that matter today: black identity, the politics of black rage, the expression of black dissent, the politics of black power, and the importance of consolidating varieties of expressions within black communities—different ideologies and politics—and bringing them together under a banner of functional solidarity.&” The End of White World Supremacy contains four major speeches by Malcolm X, including: &“Black Man's History,&” &“The Black Revolution,&” &“The Old Negro and the New Negro,&” and the famous &“The Chickens Are Coming Home to Roost&” speech ("God's Judgment of White America"), delivered after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Several of the speeches include a discussion with the moderator, among whom Adam Clayton Powell, or a question-and-answer with the audience. This new edition bundles with the book an audio download of Malcolm's stirring delivery of &“Black Man's History&” in Harlem's Temple No.7 and &“The Black Revolution&” in the Abyssinian Baptist Church.
The End of Woman: How Smashing the Patriarchy Has Destroyed Us
by Carrie GressFeminism Doesn&’t Empower Women. It Erases Them. The bestselling author of Theology of Home, Carrie Gress shows that fifty years of radical feminism have solidified the primacy of the traditionally male sphere of life and devalued the attributes, virtues, and strengths of women. Feminism, the ideology dedicated to "smashing the patriarchy," has instead made male lives the norm for everyone. After fifty years of radical feminism, we can&’t even define "woman." In this powerful new book, Carrie Gress says what cannot be said: feminism has abolished women. Hulking "trans women" thrash female athletes. Mothers abort their baby girls. Drag queens perform obscene parodies of women. Females are enslaved for men's pleasure—or they enslave themselves. Feminism doesn&’t avert these tragedies; it encourages them. The carefree binge of self-absorption has left women exploited, unhappy, dependent on the state, and at war with men. And still, feminists cling to their illusions of liberation. But there are real answers. Real answers for real women. Carrie Gress—a wife, mother, and philosopher—punctures the myth of feminism, exposing its legacy of abuse, abandonment, and anarchy. From the serpent&’s seduction of Eve to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to Kate Millett&’s lust, violence, and insanity to Meghan Markle&’s havoc-ridden rise to royalty, Gress presents a history as intriguing as the characters who lived it. The answers women most desperately need, she concludes, are to be found precisely where they are most afraid to look. Only a rediscovery of true womanhood—and motherhood—can pull our society back from the brink. And happiness is possible only if women are open to making peace with men, with children, with God, and—no less difficult—with themselves. For feminism&’s victims, Gress is a welcoming voice in the darkness: The door is open. The lights are on. Come home.
The End of the CBC?
by David Taras Christopher WaddellThe End of the CBC? is about three overlapping crises: the crisis that has enveloped the CBC, the crisis of news, and the crisis of democracy. They are all the result to some degree of the vast changes that have overtaken and consumed the media world in the last ten to fifteen years. The emergence of platforms such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Netflix, the hyper-targeting of individual users through data analytics, the development of narrow online identity communities, and the rise of an attention economy that makes it more and more difficult for any but the most powerful media organizations to be noticed, have changed the media landscape in dramatic ways. The effects on the CBC and on other Canadian media organizations have been shattering. Describing the failure of successive governments to address problems faced by the public broadcaster, this book explains how the CBC lost its place in sports, drama, and entertainment. Taras and Waddell propose a way forward for the CBC – one in which the corporation concentrates its resources on news and current affairs and re-establishes a reputation for depth and quality.
The End of the Chinese Dream
by Gerard LemosGlossy television images of happy, industrious, and increasingly prosperous workers show a bright view of life in twenty-first-century China. But behind the officially approved story is a different reality. Preparing this book Gerard Lemos asked hundreds of Chinese men and women living in Chongqing, an industrial mega-city, about their wishes and fears. The lives they describe expose the myth of China's harmonious society. Hundreds of millions of everyday people in China are beleaguered by immense social and health problems as well as personal, family, and financial anxieties—while they watch their communities and traditions being destroyed. Lemos investigates a China beyond the foreigners' beaten track. This is a revealing account of the thoughts and feelings of Chinese people regarding all facets of their lives, from education to health care, unemployment to old age, politics to wealth. Taken together, the stories of these men and women bring to light a broken society, one whose people are frustrated, angry, sad, and often fearful about the circumstances of their lives. The author considers the implications of these findings and analyzes how China's community and social problems threaten the ambitious nation's hopes for a prosperous and cohesive future. Lemos explains why protests will continue and a divided and self-serving leadership will not make people's dreams come true.
The End of the Cognitive Empire: The Coming of Age of Epistemologies of the South
by Boaventura De SantosIn The End of the Cognitive Empire Boaventura de Sousa Santos further develops his concept of the "epistemologies of the South," in which he outlines a theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical framework for challenging the dominance of Eurocentric thought. As a collection of knowledges born of and anchored in the experiences of marginalized peoples who actively resist capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy, epistemologies of the South represent those forms of knowledge that are generally discredited, erased, and ignored by dominant cultures of the global North. Noting the declining efficacy of established social and political solutions to combat inequality and discrimination, Santos suggests that global justice can only come about through an epistemological shift that guarantees cognitive justice. Such a shift would create new, alternative strategies for political mobilization and activism and give oppressed social groups the means through which to represent the world as their own and in their own terms.
The End of the Developmental State?: End Of The Developmental State? (Routledge Studies in Development and Society)
by Michelle WilliamsThe End of the Developmental State? brings together leading scholars of development to assess the current status of the "developmental state" in several developing and transitional economies of South Korea, Taiwan, Ireland, the United Kingdom, China, South Africa, Brazil and India. Has the concept of the developmental state become outmoded? These authors would suggest not. However, they do argue that the historical trajectories of developmental states in Asia, Latin America, Africa and Europe suggest all too clearly that the concept must be re-examined critically and creatively. The range and diversity of their positions and their rejection of stale programmatic positions from the past will revitalize the debate on the role of the state in social and economic transformation in the twenty-first century. By bringing together careful comparative analyses of national cases, in both the Global North and South, the volume highlights pivotal conditions – economic restructuring, domestic politics, epistemic shifts and ecological limits – that are forcing revision of the goals and strategies of developmental states and suggests that states that ignore these new conditions will indeed see the "end of the developmental state".
The End of the Dream (Ann Rule's Crime Files, Vol. #5)
by Ann RuleAmerica's #1 true crime writer, Ann Rule has brought her expertise to twelve fascinating bestsellers. Now Rule continues her blockbuster Crime Files series with a riveting case drawn from her true crime dossier: the explosive story of four talented and charismatic young men -- best friends whose bond was shattered when one among them was consumed by lethal greed and twisted desire.
The End of the Dream and Other Stories
by John G. NeihardtOriginally published at the beginning of the twentieth century, the short stories of John G. Neihardt deserve to be better known. Their flesh-and-blood Indians were practically unprecedented in an era when the fiends of dime novels and idealizations of Cooper were still the literary norm. Owing much to young Neihardt's intimate association with the Omahas at their reservation in eastern Nebraska, the stories were of an Indian cast that perplexed the critics. They were often overlooked as the years brought laurels to the author of A Cycle of the West and Black Elk Speaks. A closer look at them reveals that Neihardt was a disciplined artist from the very beginning.The nine stories in this volume appeared from 1901 to 1905 in the Overland Monthly; five were collected in The Lonesome Trail in 1907. All of them are informed by Neihardt's experience among Omaha Indians and shaped by the power of his imagination. Except for "A Prairie Borgia," which clearly touches on the notorious Chief Blackbird's relations with traders, all are set in the time before contact with white men. Love and hate, kindness and cruelty, hope and despair, generosity and envy, honesty and guile, spiritual impulse and sexual desire operate in this wholly Indian world. "The End of the Dream," 'The Triumph of Seha," and "The Smile of God" are patterned on vision quests issuing in profound irony. The social outcast who figured in Neihardt's Indian Tales and Others (1927, a Bison Book), appears again in adventures with a cosmic, and sometimes fantastic, dimension. These stories, as well as "When the Snows Drift," "The Beating of the War Drums," "The Fading of Shadow Flower," "The Singing of the Frogs," and "The Spirit of Crow Butte," have an inwardness reflected by vivid imagery. Their quality led Dr. Susan LaFlesche Picotte, the daughter of Joseph LaFlesche (Iron Eyes), last chief of the Omahas, to exclaim that Neihardt was the only writer in a long line extending from Cooper to Frederic Remington who possessed "a true understanding of Indian character."The stories were compiled by Neihardt's daughter, Hilda Neihardt Petri. In his introduction Jay Fultz discusses their cultural context and artistic integrity.