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Radical Equality: Ambedkar, Gandhi, and the Risk of Democracy
by Aishwary KumarB. R. Ambedkar, the architect of India's constitution, and M. K. Gandhi, the Indian nationalist, two figures whose thought and legacies have most strongly shaped the contours of Indian democracy, are typically considered antagonists who held irreconcilable views on empire, politics, and society. As such, they are rarely studied together. This book reassesses their complex relationship, focusing on their shared commitment to equality and justice, which for them was inseparable from anticolonial struggles for sovereignty. Both men inherited the concept of equality from Western humanism, but their ideas mark a radical turn in humanist conceptions of politics. This study recovers the philosophical foundations of their thought in Indian and Western traditions, religious and secular alike. Attending to moments of difficulty in their conceptions of justice and their language of nonviolence, it probes the nature of risk that radical democracy's desire for inclusion opens within modern political thought. In excavating Ambedkar and Gandhi's intellectual kinship, Radical Equality allows them to shed light on each other, even as it places them within a global constellation of moral and political visions. The story of their struggle against inequality, violence, and empire thus transcends national boundaries and unfolds within a universal history of citizenship and dissent.
Radio and the Gendered Soundscape
by Christine EhrickThis book is a history of women, radio, and the gendered constructions of voice and sound in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Montevideo, Uruguay. Through the stories of five women and one radio station, this study makes a substantial theoretical contribution to the study of gender, mass media, and political culture and expands our knowledge of these issues beyond the US and Western Europe. Included here is a study of the first all-women's radio station in the Western Hemisphere, an Argentine comedian known as 'Chaplin in Skirts', an author of titillating dramatic serials and, of course, Argentine First Lady 'Evita' Perón. Through the concept of the gendered soundscape, this study integrates sound studies and gender history in new ways, asking readers to consider both the female voice in history and the sonic dimensions of gender.
Radovan Karadžić
by Robert J. DoniaRadovan Karadžić, leader of the Bosnian Serb nationalists during the Bosnian War (1992–5), stands accused of genocide and other crimes of war before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. This book traces the origins of the extreme violence of the war to the utopian national aspirations of the Serb Democratic Party and Karadžić's personal transformation from an unremarkable family man to the powerful leader of the Bosnian Serb nationalists. Based on previously unused documents from the tribunal's archives and many hours of Karadžić's cross-examination at his trial, the author shows why and how the Bosnian Serb leader planned and directed the worst atrocities in Europe since the Second World War. This book provocatively argues that postcommunist democracy was a primary enabler of mass atrocities because it provided the means to mobilize large numbers of Bosnian Serbs for the campaign to eliminate non-Serbs from conquered land.
The Raging Skillet: The True Life Story of Chef Rossi
by RossiWhen their high-school-aged, punk, runaway daughter is found hosting a Jersey Shore hotel party, Rossi's parents feel they have no other choice: they ship her off to live with a Chasidic rabbi in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Within the confines of this restrictive culture, Rossi's big city dreams take root. Once she makes her way to Manhattan, Rossi's passion for cooking, which first began as a revolt against the microwave, becomes her life mission. The Raging Skillet is one woman's story of cooking her way through some of the most unlikely kitchens in New York City--at a "beach" in Tribeca, an East Village supper club, and a makeshift grill at ground zero in the days immediately following 9/11. Forever writing her own rules, Rossi ends up becoming the owner of one of the most sought-after catering companies in the city. This heartfelt, gritty, and hilarious memoir shows us how the creativity of the kitchen allows us to give a nod to where we come from, while simultaneously expressing everything that we are. Includes unpretentious recipes for real people everywhere. Rossi is the owner and executive chef of The Raging Skillet, described as a "rebel anti-caterer" by the New York Times. Rossi has written for many publications, including Bust, the Daily News, the New York Post, the Huffington Post, Time Out New York, and McSweeney's. She is the host of a long-running radio show in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Raif Badawi: My Husband, Our Story
by Ensaf Haidar Andrea C HoffmannThe whole world knows the face of the young man with the bright black eyes. He is in the process of becoming an icon, a symbol, similar to the famous photo of Che Guevara. The face is that of Raif Badawi, who was nominated for the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize. Arrested in Saudi Arabia, he was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment and 1000 lashes - a de facto death sentence.The woman who succeeded in getting such people as Barack Obama and Prince Charles to appeal personally to the Saudi King for Badawi's release is his wife, Ensaf Haidar, who began the campaign to free her husband with a self-painted poster in front of a small church in Sherbrooke, Canada.When Raif Badawi and Ensaf Haidar fell in love with each other as adolescents, they did so in violation of every moral precept in the strictly Islamic Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. During their clandestine love affair, the young couple had no idea that, more than a decade later, Ensaf's love for Raif would attract the attention of politicians from around the world as the blogger's wife now mobilises global public opinion in an effort to save her husband from murder at the hands of the Saudi judiciary. With a courage born of desperation, she is fighting from exile in Canada to secure the release of the father of her three children, and is bringing great pressure to bear on the murderous regime in her native country.Ensaf Haidar tells Raif's and her own story: the story of their shared liberal ideas and her fight for her husband's release.
Raif Badawi, The Voice of Freedom: My Husband, Our Story
by Ensaf Haidar Andrea Claudia HoffmannA powerful first-person account of Ensaf Haidar's life wither her husband, Saudi Arabian social activist Raif Badawi, and her worldwide campaign to free him from imprisonment Ensaf Haidar's unforgettable account of her marriage to imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi tells the story of the survival of their love against all odds, and of her courageous fight for her husband's freedom.When Ensaf and Raif married in 2002 they shed tears of joy; they had overcome the resistance of her family and the rigid conventions of Saudi Arabian culture, and their battle to be together was finally won. But an even greater challenge lay ahead. After the romance of their clandestine courtship, the triumph of their wedding day, and the ups and downs of married life, Ensaf discovers that Raif is becoming active in the liberal movement. Their partnership grows stronger as Raif works tirelessly, daring to question the social order of Saudi Arabia -- until his activities attract the attention of the religious police. With Raif under increasing surveillance, Ensaf reluctantly accepts exile as the only way to protect their three young children, hoping that Raif will soon join them.But Raif's arrest and subsequent sentence -- to ten years in prison and 1,000 lashes -- change everything. Ensaf must take up the fight for her husband's life, galvanizing global support and campaigning for his freedom -- and their right to be reunited as a family again. This profoundly moving memoir is both a love story and an inspiring account of the making of not one but two heroic human rights activists.
Raif Badawi: My Husband, Our Story
by Ensaf Haidar Andrea C HoffmannThe whole world knows the face of the young man with the bright black eyes. He is in the process of becoming an icon, a symbol, similar to the famous photo of Che Guevara. The face is that of Raif Badawi, who was nominated for the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize. Arrested in Saudi Arabia, he was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment and 1000 lashes - a de facto death sentence.The woman who succeeded in getting such people as Barack Obama and Prince Charles to appeal personally to the Saudi King for Badawi's release is his wife, Ensaf Haidar, who began the campaign to free her husband with a self-painted poster in front of a small church in Sherbrooke, Canada.When Raif Badawi and Ensaf Haidar fell in love with each other as adolescents, they did so in violation of every moral precept in the strictly Islamic Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. During their clandestine love affair, the young couple had no idea that, more than a decade later, Ensaf's love for Raif would attract the attention of politicians from around the world as the blogger's wife now mobilises global public opinion in an effort to save her husband from murder at the hands of the Saudi judiciary. With a courage born of desperation, she is fighting from exile in Canada to secure the release of the father of her three children, and is bringing great pressure to bear on the murderous regime in her native country.Ensaf Haidar tells Raif's and her own story: the story of their shared liberal ideas and her fight for her husband's release.
The Rain Wizard: The Amazing, Mysterious, True Life of Charles Mallory Hatfield
by Larry Dane BrimnerIn December 1915, San Diego's leaders claimed the town's reservoirs were nearly dry. Knowing the city would not survive and grow unless it had water, they hired Charles Mallory Hatfield, whose skills at making rain were legendary. But when torrents and torrents of rain came, disaster struck. Roads were closed, people drowned, and dams burst. The town elders blamed Hatfield and refused to pay him. Was Hatfield really a rain wizard, or simply a fraud? Renowned author Larry Dane Brimner examines the man and the myth by relying on personal recollections from growing up in California, as well as extensive research. Readers will be captivated by Hatfield--a man once known as the Frankenstein of the air--and his secret rainmaking formulas. Includes author's note, source notes, and bibliography.
The Rainman's Third Cure: An Irregular Education
by Peter Coyote"The rainman gave me two curesAnd he said, 'Just jump right in.'The one was Texas MedicineAnd the other was railroad gin.And like a fool I mixed themAnd they strangled up my mindNow people just get uglierAnd I have no sense of time." --Bob Dylan, "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" The guiding metaphor in Peter Coyote's new spiritual biography is drawn from a line in an early Bob Dylan song. For Coyote, the twin forces Dylan identifies as Texas Medicine and Railroad Gin - represent the competing forces of the transcendental, inclusive, and ecstatic world of love with the competitive, status-seeking world of wealth and power. The Rainman's Third Cure is the tale of a young man caught between these apparently antipodal options and the journey that leads him from the privileged halls of power to Greenwich Village jazz bars, to jail, to the White House, lessons from a man who literally held the power of life and death over others, to government service and international success on stage and screen.Expanding his frame beyond the wild ride through the 1960's counterculture that occupied so much of his lauded debut memoir, Sleeping Where I Fall, Coyote provides readers intimate portraits of mentors that shaped him-a violent, intimidating father, a be-bop Bass player who teaches him that life can be improvised, a Mafia consiglieri, who demonstrates to him that men can be bought and manipulated, an ex game-warden who initates him into the laws of nature, a gay dancer in Martha Graham's company who introduces him to Mexico and marijuanas, beat poet Gary Snyder, who introduces him to Zen practice, and finally famed fashion designer Nino Cerruti who made the high-stakes world of haute monde Europe available to him.What begins as a peripatetic flirtation with Zen deepens into a life-long avocation, ordination as a priest, and finally the road to Transmission---acknowledgement from his teacher that he is ready to be an independent teacher. Through Zen, Coyote discovers a third option that offers an alternative to both the worlds of Love and Power's correlatives of status seeking and material wealth. Zen was his portal, but what he discovers on the inside is actually available to all humans. In this energetic, reflective and intelligent memoir, The Rainman's Third Cure is the way out of the box. The way that works.
Rajon Rondo
by Aurelia JacksonFour-time NBA All-Star Rajon Rondo is one of the most exciting players in the NBA. Since being drafted in 2006, Rajon has gone on to amazing heights playing with the Boston Celtics. In his time in the NBA, Rajon has led the NBA in assists and steals, won awards, and played with some of the NBA's best. Find out more about one of basketball's best players. Learn about Rajon's childhood--and how he went from shooting hoops in high school to sinking baskets for the Celtics. Discover how he became one of the league's best defensive players!
Ralph Peer and the Making of Popular Roots Music
by Barry MazorThis is the first biography of Ralph Peer, the adventurous--even revolutionary--A&R man and music publisher who changed the breadth and flavor of popular music in the United States and around the world. It is the story of the life and 50-year career of the man who was crucial in discovering star musicians and establishing the genres of blues, jazz, country, gospel, and Latin music. It tracks Peer's role in such groundbreaking episodes as recording the record that sparked the blues craze, the first country recording sessions with Fiddlin' John Carson, his discovery of Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family at the famed Bristol Sessions, the popularizing of Latin American music during World War II, and the postwar transformation of music on the airwaves that set the stage for the dominance of R&B, country, and rock music.
Ralph Peer and the Making of Popular Roots Music (Enhanced Edition)
by Barry MazorThis enhanced e-book includes 49 of the greatest songs Ralph Peer was involved with, from groundbreaking numbers that changed the history of recorded music to revelatory obscurities, all linked to the text so that the reader can hear the music while reading about it.This is the first biography of Ralph Peer, the adventurous--even revolutionary--A&R man and music publisher who saw the universal power locked in regional roots music and tapped it, changing the breadth and flavor of popular music around the world. It is the story of the life and fifty-year career, from the age of cylinder recordings to the stereo era, of the man who pioneered the recording, marketing, and publishing of blues, jazz, country, gospel, and Latin music.The book tracks Peer's role in such breakthrough events as the recording of Mamie Smith's "Crazy Blues" (the record that sparked the blues craze), the first country recording sessions with Fiddlin' John Carson, his discovery of Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family at the famed Bristol sessions, the popularizing of Latin American music during World War II, and the postwar transformation of music on the airwaves that set the stage for the dominance of R&B, country, and rock 'n' roll.But this is also the story of a man from humble midwestern beginnings who went on to build the world's largest independent music publishing firm, fostering the global reach of music that had previously been specialized, localized, and marginalized. Ralph Peer redefined the ways promising songs and performers were identified, encouraged, and promoted, rethought how far regional music might travel, and changed our very notions of what pop music can be.
Rangers And Sovereignty
by Dan W. RobertsA gripping slice of Americana, telling the exciting tale of Texas Ranger Daniel Webster Roberts' Ranger service. As Captain of Company D, this book details the social life of the rangers, their relations with frontier society, their food, dress, and entertainment."We set out in this writing to record the work of Company "D", Frontier Battalion, not for any selfish consideration. But, being almost importuned by our real friends to do so, we thought we could tell what we really know to be true in a way that might spin out a thread strong enough to bind together an intelligent idea of the needs of that service, how the service was performed, and at least a vision of the final disposition of the horrid Indian question. Our egotism doesn't lead us to say that Texas did it all; but our little part is richly treasured in the archives of our "native heath"--Texas. Our sorrows are there, also, in many a grave not even marked by human hands to show where our brave defenders met death--yielding the last sacrifice in defense of Texas."
Raoul Wallenberg: The Heroic Life And Mysterious Disappearance Of The Man Who Saved Thousands Of Hungarian Jews From The Holocaust
by Ingrid CarlbergAn Honorary Citizen of the United States and Canada, and designated as one of the Righteous among the Nations by Israel, Raoul Wallenberg was a modest envoy to Hungary whose heroism in Budapest at the height of the Holocaust saved countless Jewish lives, and ultimately cost him his own.A series of unlikely coincidences led to the appointment of Wallenberg, by trade a poultry importer, as Sweden's Special Envoy to Budapest in 1944. With remarkable bravery, Wallenberg created a system of protective passports, and sheltered thousands of desperate Jews in a special "international ghetto" created in collaboration with other neutral countries. As the war drew to a close, his invaluable work almost complete, Wallenberg voluntarily went to meet with the Soviet troops who were relieving the city. Arrested as a spy, Wallenberg disappeared into the depths of the Soviet system, never to be seen again.In this definitive biography, noted journalist Ingrid Carlberg has carried out unprecedented research into all elements of Wallenberg's life, narrating with vigor and insight the story of a heroic life, and navigating with wisdom and sensitivity the truth about his disappearance and death.
Rasputin: A short life
by Frances WelchGrigory Rasputin, the Siberian peasant-turned-mystic, was as fascinating as he was unfathomable. He played the role of the simple man, eating with his fingers and boasting, 'I don't even know my ABC...' But, as the only person able to relieve the symptoms of haemophilia in the Tsar's heir Alexis, he gained almost hallowed status within the Imperial court. During the last decade of his life, he and his band of 'little ladies' came to symbolise all that was decadent and remote about the royal family.His role in the downfall of the tsarist regime is beyond dispute. But who was he really? Prophet or rascal?In this eye-opening short biography, which draws on previously unpublished material, Frances Welch turns her inimitable wry gaze on one of the great mysteries of Russian history.
Raw
by Colin CowherdIn his no-holds-barred, unapologetically controversial voice, New York Times bestselling author and ESPN radio show host Colin Cowherd gives an insider's look into all things sports, including behind-the-scenes scandals, inter-team rivalries, and players' lives on and off the field.There's a lot you don't see or hear sitting high up in the stands. But Colin Cowherd knows what really goes on--and he's not afraid to share the vivid details of everything we don't see on ESPN. From hotel parties for athletes and other industry professionals, to gossip from the road between games, to what happens at ESPN behind closed doors, Cowherd draws on personal experiences to offer you an exclusive look into the rarefied, outrageous, ego-stuffed sphere of the professional sports world. If you want honest, unvarnished opinions on current sports rivalries, scandals, and statistics, it's all in Raw--from one of America's most outspoken sports broadcasters on air today.
Ray Bradbury (Modern Masters of Science Fiction)
by David SeedAs much as any individual, Ray Bradbury brought science fiction's ideas into the mainstream. Yet he transcended the genre in both form and popularity, using its trappings to explore timely social concerns and the kaleidoscope of human experience while in the process becoming one of America's most beloved authors. David Seed follows Bradbury's long career from the early short story masterpieces through his work in a wide variety of broadcast and film genres to the influential cultural commentary he spread via essays, speeches, and interviews. Mining Bradbury's classics and hard-to-find archival, literary, and cultural materials, Seed analyzes how the author's views on technology, authoritarianism, and censorship affected his art; how his Midwest of dream and dread brought his work to life; and the ways film and television influenced his creative process and visually-oriented prose style. The result is a passionate statement on Bradbury's status as an essential literary writer deserving of a place in the cultural history of his time.
Ray Davies: A Complicated Life
by Johnny RoganNOW UPDATED WITH A NEW EPILOGUE In the summer of 1964, aged twenty, Ray Davies led the Kinks to fame with their number one hit ‘You Really Got Me’. Within months, they were established among the pop elite, swamped by fans and fast becoming renowned for the rioting at their gigs. But Ray’s journey from working-class Muswell Hill to the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame was tumultuous in the extreme, featuring breakdowns, bitter lawsuits, spectacular punch-ups and a ban from entering the USA. His relationship with his brother Dave is surely the most ferocious and abusive in music history. Based on countless interviews conducted over several decades, this richly detailed and revelatory biography presents the most frank and intimate portrait yet of Ray Davies.
Razzle Dazzle: The Battle for Broadway
by Michael Riedel&“A vivid page-turner&” (NPR) detailing the rise, fall, and redemption of Broadway—its stars, its biggest shows, its producers, and all the drama, intrigue, and power plays that happened behind the scenes.&“A rich, lovely, debut history of New York theater in the 1970s and eighties&” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), Razzle Dazzle is a narrative account of the people and the money and the power that turned New York&’s gritty back alleys and sex-shops into the glitzy, dazzling Great White Way.In the mid-1970s Times Square was the seedy symbol of New York&’s economic decline. Its once shining star, the renowned Shubert Organization, was losing theaters to make way for parking lots and losing money. Bernard Jacobs and Jerry Schoenfeld, two ambitious board members, saw the crumbling company was ripe for takeover and staged a coup and staved off corporate intrigue, personal betrayals and criminal investigations. Once Jacobs and Schoenfeld solidified their power, they turned a collapsed theater-owning holding company into one of the most successful entertainment empires in the world, spearheading the revitalization of Broadway and the renewal of Times Square.&“For those interested in the business behind the greasepaint, at a riveting time in Broadway&’s and New York&’s history, this is the ticket&” (USA TODAY). Michael Riedel tells the stories of the Shubert Organization and the shows that re-built a city in grand style—including Cats, A Chorus Line, and Mamma Mia!—revealing the backstage drama that often rivaled what transpired onstage, exposing bitter rivalries, unlikely alliances, and inside gossip. &“The trouble with Razzle Dazzle is…you can&’t put the damn thing down&” (Huffington Post).
Reach
by Russell Simmons Ben Jealous Trabian ShortersIn this timely and important collection of personal essays, black men from all walks of life share their inspiring stories and ultimately how each, in his own way, became a source of hope for his community and country.Reach includes forty first-person accounts from well-known men like the Rev. Al Sharpton, John Legend, Isiah Thomas, Bill T. Jones, Louis Gossett, Jr., and Talib Kweli, alongside influential community organizers, businessmen, religious leaders, philanthropists, and educators. These remarkable individuals are living proof that black men are as committed as ever to ensuring a better world for themselves and for others. Powerful and indispensable to our ongoing cultural dialogue, Reach explodes myths about black men by providing rare, candid, and deeply personal insights into their lives. It's a blueprint for better community engagement. It's an essential resource for communities everywhere. Proceeds from the sale of Reach will go to BMe Community, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building caring and prosperous communities inspired by black men. Reach is also a Project of the Kapor Center for Social Impact, one of the founding supporters of President Obama's My Brother's Keeper initiative.
Reading Claudius
by Caroline HellerA stunning elegy to a vanished time, Caroline Heller's memoir traces the lives of her parents, her uncle, and their circle of intellectuals and dreamers from Central Europe on the eve of World War II to present-day America. In this unforgettable dual memoir of her parents' lives and her own, Caroline Heller brings to life the lost world of European café culture, and reminds us of the sustaining power of literature in the most challenging of times. Heller vividly evokes prewar Prague, where her parents lived, loved, and studied. Her mother, Liese Florsheim, was a young German refugee initially drawn to Erich Heller, a bright but detached intellectual, rather than to his brother, Paul. As Hitler's power spreads and World War II becomes inevitable, their world is destroyed and they must flee the country and continent. Paul, who will eventually become the author's father, is trapped and sent to Buchenwald, where he survives under hellish conditions. Though Paul's life nearly ends in Europe, he reunites with Liese in the United States, where they marry. Their daughter Caroline, restless and insecure, carries the trauma of her parents' story with her, but her quest to make peace with her heritage is eased by her love of books and writers, part of her family legacy. Through the darkest years of Hitler's rule, Caroline's parents and uncle had turned time and time again to literature to help them survive--and so she does as well. Written with sensitivity and grace, Reading Claudius is a profound meditation on the ways we strive to solve the mysteries of our pasts, and a window into understanding the ones we love. Advance praise for Reading Claudius "Caroline Heller writes with both honesty and delicacy. I was particularly enthralled by her finely drawn portrait of prewar Central Europe: a lost world whose memories are inestimably valuable and fiercely beautiful but which, without accounts like this, would fade forever."--Anne Fadiman, author of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down "Reading Claudius is much more than a work of riveting personal history. It is a feat of passionate, radical integrity. Caroline Heller has wedded the greatest level of care in her scholarship to an even deeper form of search: that in which imagination becomes not only an act of love but an instrument of truth."--Leah Hager Cohen, author of No Book but the World and The Grief of Others "A deeply felt and deeply thought memoir, it manages to unearth a whole lost world with aching tenderness and regret."--Phillip Lopate, author of Portrait Inside My HeadFrom the Hardcover edition.
Reading Václav Havel
by David S. DanaherAs a playwright, a dissident, and a politician, Václav Havel was one of the most important intellectual figures of the late twentieth century. Working in an extraordinary range of genres - poetry, plays, public letters, philosophical essays, and political speeches - he left behind a range of texts so diverse that scholars have had difficulty grappling with his oeuvre as a whole.In Reading Václav Havel, David S. Danaher approaches Havel's remarkable body of work holistically, focusing on the language, images, and ideas which appear and reappear in the many genres in which Havel wrote. Carefully reading the original Czech texts alongside their English versions, he exposes what in Havel's thought has been lost in translation. A passionate argument for Havel's continuing relevance, Reading Václav Havel is the first book to capture the fundamental unity of his vast literary legacy.
Readings in Wood: What the Forest Taught Me
by John Leland“[Leland] brings the botanical into direct relationship with the spiritual, using a prose style that is as profound as it is pyrotechnic.” —Jim Warren, Washington and Lee UniversityAward-winning nature writer John Leland offers a collection of twenty-seven short, poetic essays that marry science and the humanities as the author seeks meaning in trees. Readings in Wood is an investigation of trees and forests and also of wood as a material that people have found essential in the creation of society and culture. Leland views with wit and erudition the natural world and the curious place of human beings as saviors and destroyers of this world.At once personal memoir, natural history, and cultural criticism, the book reflects Leland’s idiosyncratic vision. As vast as a forest, topics range from tree grain and leaf shape to economic theories, mathematics, and engineering. Readings in Wood is a hybrid testament of science, faith, superstition, and disbelief learned from sitting on tree trunks and peering at leaves and fungi. Leland hopes others will join him in nature’s classroom. Quite aware of the irony, he reminds us, “These leaves you desultorily turn over once hung in a green wood gone to make this book. Touching a book, you touch a tree. I pray that Readings in Wood’s essays, touching you, may justify in some small way the trees who died in their making.”“This book constitutes a hymn to the technical and the beautiful, a meander through the geography, geology, botany, mathematics and vigor of our plants, especially in the southern Appalachians.” —R. T. Smith, editor, Shenandoah, and writer-in-residence, Washington and Lee University“Informative, thoughtful, inspiring, and innately entertaining.” —The Midwest Book Review
Reagan: The Life
by H. W. BrandsFrom master storyteller and New York Times bestselling historian H. W. Brands comes the definitive biography of a visionary and transformative president. In his magisterial new biography, H. W. Brands brilliantly establishes Ronald Reagan as one of the two great presidents of the twentieth century, a true peer to Franklin Roosevelt. Reagan conveys with sweep and vigor how the confident force of Reagan's personality and the unwavering nature of his beliefs enabled him to engineer a conservative revolution in American politics and play a crucial role in ending communism in the Soviet Union. Reagan shut down the age of liberalism, Brands shows, and ushered in the age of Reagan, whose defining principles are still powerfully felt today. Reagan follows young Ronald Reagan as his ambition for ever larger stages compelled him to leave behind small-town Illinois to become first a radio announcer and then that quintessential public figure of modern America, a movie star. When his acting career stalled, his reinvention as the voice of The General Electric Theater on television made him an unlikely spokesman for corporate America. Then began Reagan's improbable political ascension, starting in the 1960s, when he was first elected governor of California, and culminating in his election in 1980 as president of the United States. Employing archival sources not available to previous biographers and drawing on dozens of interviews with surviving members of Reagan's administration, Brands has crafted a richly detailed and fascinating narrative of the presidential years. He offers new insights into Reagan's remote management style and fractious West Wing staff, his deft handling of public sentiment to transform the tax code, and his deeply misunderstood relationship with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, on which nothing less than the fate of the world turned. Reagan is a storytelling triumph, an irresistible portrait of an underestimated politician whose pragmatic leadership and steadfast vision transformed the nation.
Reagan and Pinochet
by Morris Morley Chris McgillionThis book is the first comprehensive study of the Reagan administration's policy toward the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile. Based on new primary and archival materials, as well as on original interviews with former U. S. and Chilean officials, it traces the evolution of Reagan policy from an initial "close embrace" of the junta to a reevaluation of whether Pinochet was a risk to long-term U. S. interests in Chile and, finally, to an acceptance in Washington of the need to push for a return to democracy. It provides fresh insights into the bureaucratic conflicts that were a key part of the Reagan decision-making process and reveals not only the successes but also the limits of U. S. influence on Pinochet's regime - centered around the challenge of creating a viable civilian alternative that was acceptable to both the junta and Washington. Finally, it contributes to the ongoing debate about the U. S. approach toward democracy promotion in the Third World over the past half century.