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How the GOP Establishment Is Co-Opting the Freshman Tea Party Class (Voices of the Tea Party)
by Constance DogoodNew from Broadside Books' Voices of the Tea Party. In this first-hand account of the perils of Washington, Constance Dogood, an average American who became an early leader of the Tea Party movement, describes the methods used by the Republican Establishment to co-opt the Freshman members of Congress. Called "the Tea Party Class" because they were propelled into office by a wave of Tea Party support, these 63 new Republican members of Congress face a daunting challenge in the 112th Congress. On the one hand, they need to honor the promises they made to the tea partiers in their districts who helped elect them. On the other hand, they need to learn the ropes of Washington without unnecessarily alienating the Republican Establishment so long entrenched in and around the corridors of power. Constance concludes that the House of Representatives would be well advised to ditch the century old hierarchical party leadership structure and look to the Tea Party movement itself for a superior model of organizing to return the country to its constitutional roots.
The Big Bang Theory: The Official Trivia Guide
by Adam FabermanThis completely authorized Big Bang Theory trivia and quiz book is filled with questions from every season, photos, hilarious quotes, and more, including excerpts from the Roommate Agreement and your chance to play ‘Emily or Cinnamon.’ It’s sure to provide hours of fun and test the knowledge of even the most dedicated fan.The Big Bang Theory is one of the most popular sitcoms in the world and the funniest show on TV. It is beloved by critics and audiences alike for its quick wit, incredibly geeky but relatable characters, and its science and science fiction storylines. But up until now, there has never been an official Big Bang Theory book. The Big Bang Theory: The Official Trivia Guide is the book fans have been waiting for. Featuring 1,600 questions, photos, and many of the best quotes from Sheldon, Raj, Penny, Howard, Leonard, Amy, and Bernadette, as well as a complete episode guide, this official book will entertain all Big Bang fans, old and new alike. Do you know what instrument Leonard plays in the Physics Department String Quartet? Or which award Sheldon is the youngest person to have ever received? Or how about the name of Penny’s avatar in the Age of Conan game? Or who Howard went to couples therapy with? Or the name of Raj’s school? Or when Sheldon does his laundry? Or what Leonard brought Penny back from the North Pole? You don’t need Sheldon’s eidetic memory to enjoy this book, but it might help! Get ready to use your knowledge of The Big Bang Theory and challenge your friends and family with trivia and questions about your favorite scientists.
The Great Redan at Sebastopol: The Most Victoria Crosses Awarded for a Single Action
by James W. BancroftOn 18 June 1855, the 40th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, British assault troops moved out of their trenches before Sebastopol in the Crimea, and attacked the formidable Russian bastion known as the Great Redan. They came under such a murderous fire from the Russian defenders that the attack faltered, and the British were eventually forced to fall back. As they did so, they left over 1,000 comrades dead and dying out in the open and at the mercy of enemy snipers. The Siege of Sebastopol saw the development of trench warfare for the first time. Using eyewitness accounts and unpublished letters, the author tells the story of how the men coped with the terrible conditions as they prepared for the assault – as well as the events during and after the fighting. Among the anecdotes is an officer who had the ingenious idea of warming up cannon balls in the camp fires and taking them into the tents at night to keep warm; and he went on to live for over a hundred years! Well-known for his depth of research, the author questions a number of points regarding the Great Redan that are commonly believed to be historical fact. Quoting the father of Alexander the Great, it was the Russians who, soon after the assault on the Great Redan, first referred to the British as, ‘An army of lions led on by donkeys’. For over 100 years it was stated in many publications that the most Victoria Crosses awarded for a single action was the eleven presented for actions during the defense of Rorke’s Drift during the Zulu War in 1879. However, as the author reveals, twenty of the lions who fought at the Great Redan received Britain’s highest gallantry award, in whole, or in part, for their actions on 18 June 1855. The book includes biographical tributes to many of the men who were killed in action, gives details of the places where they are commemorated, and provides biographies with all the up-to-date information concerning the twenty Victoria Cross recipients.
The Basic Basics Kitchen Hacks and Hints: 350+ Amazing Tips for Seasoned Chefs and Aspirational Cooks
by Glynn ChristianTV-chef and food journalist Glynn Christian has been making cooks and chefs say Gosh! for over 40 years as he shared how ingredients work, demonstrated better techniques and revealed culinary secrets. This handbook collects over 300 of Glynn’s 'gosh-factor' hacks, explaining how best to handle garlic, why dull pasta is better, how to judge a Pavlova, how to make the frilly crusts on Portuguese egg tarts and why it should be ‘thumbs-up’ on kitchen knives. There’s a better way to roast nuts, a simpler way to bone small fish, a more reliable way to wok and a ban on foil tents. Plus frozen olives to keep a straight-up martini ice-cold.
Trophy
by Julian Jay SavarinThe pilots of Number One Squadron are the NATO elite, trained to fly the new and formidable Tornado strike plane. When a combat exercise over the Norwegian Sea turns terrifyingly into the real thing, the rivals in Number One squadron find their lives in each others' hands.
How to Speak Golf: An Illustrated Guide to Links Lingo (How To Speak Sports Ser.)
by Sally Cook Ross MacDonaldFrom ace to zinger, How to Speak Golf includes over 125 golf terms paired with charming and clever illustrations that decode the words and phrases that fly around a golf course.Clubhouse Chatter sections are sprinkled throughout where you'll learn about everything from the origins of golf, the worst courses and biggest sand bunkers in the world, to the reason why there are so many bird references in golf terminology, a history of famous holes-in-one, and much, much more! Some of the terms included in the book are:-Army golf: The inconsistent hitting of the ball from one side of the fairway to the other. (Think: Left, right, left.)-Cabbage: The worst of the rough. (Also known as "Spinach" or "Lettuce." Whatever you call it, this is a salad to be avoided.)-Ham and egg: When two players on a team pair well, with one player excelling whenever the other falters.-Velcro: Greens that are slow, where it seems like the ball sticks to the grass.Author Sally Cook and illustrator Ross MacDonald offer the perfect blend of funny anecdotes and fascinating bits of history and trivia. This is the perfect gift book to have you talking like a master whether you're a pro, a lifelong fan, or a novice on the greens.
The Connected Father: Understanding Your Unique Role and Responsibilities During Your Child's Adolescence
by Carl E. PickhardtParenting Expert Carl Pickhardt Shows How the Bonds Between Fathers and Teens Can Be StrengthenedMany fathers feel unprepared for their child's adolescence, in their denial, often times preferring to believe that it will only happen to other people's children. In this sensitive and forthright book, Carl Pickhardt stresses that fathers need to become informed about changes and challenges that normally unfold. Helping caring fathers navigate the four crucial and often perplexing stages of adolescence, The Connected Father describes: * how fathers can learn to be better listeners * why they have trouble communicating and what to do about it* different emotional changes between mid- and late-adolescence* how to encourage independence while setting limits* how fathers can talk to teens about drugs, sex, the internet, relationships, and more
Django Generations: Hearing Ethnorace, Citizenship, and Jazz Manouche in France (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology)
by Siv B. LieDjango Generations shows how relationships between racial identities, jazz, and national belonging become entangled in France. Jazz manouche—a genre known best for its energetic, guitar-centric swing tunes—is among France’s most celebrated musical practices of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It centers on the recorded work of famed guitarist Django Reinhardt and is named for the ethnoracial subgroup of Romanies (also known, often pejoratively, as “Gypsies”) to which Reinhardt belonged. French Manouches are publicly lauded as bearers of this jazz tradition, and many take pleasure and pride in the practice while at the same time facing pervasive discrimination. Jazz manouche uncovers a contradiction at the heart of France’s assimilationist republican ideals: the music is portrayed as quintessentially French even as Manouches themselves endure treatment as racial others. In this book, Siv B. Lie explores how this music is used to construct divergent ethnoracial and national identities in a context where discussions of race are otherwise censured. Weaving together ethnographic and historical analysis, Lie shows that jazz manouche becomes a source of profound ambivalence as it generates ethnoracial difference and socioeconomic exclusion. As the first full-length ethnographic study of French jazz to be published in English, this book enriches anthropological, ethnomusicological, and historical scholarship on global jazz, race and ethnicity, and citizenship while showing how music can be an important but insufficient tool in struggles for racial and economic justice.
Know What Makes Them Tick: How to Successfully Negotiate Almost Any Situation
by G. F. Lichtenberg Max Siegel“Siegel shows us how to successfully navigate situations that may arise at work, in the home, or in personal relationships. More, he shows how, if the cards are played right, everyone walks away a winner—an empowering feeling if ever there was one.” — Chris Gardner, author of The Pursuit of Happyness and Start Where You Are “Winners attract winners and smart leaders attract smart followers…. If you want to grow both personally and professionally, then join the winners and leaders who find wisdom with Max Siegel." — Chuck Wielgus, CEO of USA Swimming From highly innovative and successful business executive Max Siegel comes a straightforward and original self-help book that will give readers the upper hand in almost any kind of negotiation process.
Hop, Skip, Go: How the Mobility Revolution Is Transforming Our Lives
by Stephen Baker John RossantUrban expert John Rossant and business journalist Stephen Baker look beyond the false promises of the past to examine the real future of transportation and the repercussions for the world’s cities, the global economy, the environment, and our individual lives.Human mobility, dominated for a century by cars and trucks, is facing a dramatic transformation. Over the next decade, new networked devices, from electric bikes to fleets of autonomous cars, will change the way we move. They will also disrupt major industries, from energy to cars, give birth to new mobility giants, and lead to a redesign of our cities. For Rossant and Baker, this represents the advance of the Information Revolution into the physical world. This will raise troubling questions about surveillance, privacy, the dangers from hackers and the loss of jobs. But it also promises startling efficiencies, which could turn our cities green and, perhaps, save our planet.In an engaging, deeply reported book, the authors travel to mobility hotspots, from Helsinki to Shanghai, to scout out this future. And they visit the companies putting it together. One, Divergent3d, is devising a system to manufacture cars with robots and 3D printers. PonyAI, a Chinese-Silicon Valley startup, builds autonomous software that perceives potholes, oncoming trucks, and wayward pedestrians, and guides the vehicle around them. Voom, an Airbus subsidiary, is racing with dozens of others to operate fleets of air taxis that fly by themselves.Hop, Skip, Go is about us: billions of people on the move. Underlying each stage of mobility, from foot to horse to cars and jets, are the mathematics of three fundamental variables: time, space and money. We measure each trip we take, whether to Kuala Lumpur or the corner drugstore. As the authors make clear, the coming mobility revolution will be no different. As they unveil the future, the authors explore how these changes might revamp our conception of global geography, the hours in our days, and where in the world we might be able to go.
How Free People Move Mountains: A Male Christian Conservative and a Female Jewish Liberal on a Quest for Common Purpose and Meaning
by Frank Schaeffer Kathy Roth-Douquet"How Do We Ever Speak with One Voice Again in Our Divided and Angry Country?"It is amazing how one America is isolated from the "other" America. The red/blue state divisions run so deep that it is possible to live without any interaction—ideological or otherwise—with those who hold different opinions than oneself. We are a people alienated, from ourselves and from our government. The authors, an odd mix across the Blue/Red divide—one a founder of the modern evangelical movement, the other a liberal Jewish former Clinton aide—hold an extended conversation across many months, several states, and two countries—sometimes contentious, sometimes funny, exploring the idea of how unlikely pairings—and thus, the entire country—can come together. They argue that we're entering a new era in history, and now is the time to rise up to it; to make ourselves able to tackle the enormous problems in our laps; to, in effect, move mountains.
In the Watershed: A Journey Down the Maumee River
by Ryan Schnurr&“An engaging narrative . . . braiding together [Schnurr&’s] personal observations with history, science, and folklore.&” —Scott Russell Sanders, author, Earth Works: Selected Essays and A Conservationist Manifesto For several years, Ryan Schnurr watched media coverage of Lake Erie algae blooms with a growing sense of unease. An Indiana native, he wanted to learn more about role of the Maumee River in the lake&’s environmental woes: the Maumee is Lake Erie&’s largest tributary and the center of the largest watershed in the region, spanning more than 6,600 square miles of land. So in the summer of 2016, Schnurr walked and canoed the length of the river from its headwaters in Fort Wayne, Indiana to its mouth in Toledo, Ohio. In The Watershed: A Journey Down the Maumee River is the story of that voyage. As he walks the banks, Schnurr tells us the history of the river, from its formation by glaciers, function in Native American and American history, uses by industry, and role in current economic and environmental issues. Part cultural history, part nature writing, and part narrative, In the Watershed is a lyrical work of non-fiction with a timely and important warning at the core. &“What is happening in Lake Erie,&” Schnurr tells us, &“is a disaster by nearly any measure—ecologically, economically, socially, culturally.&” &“The Maumee River [is] a rich, complex, and fragile place, and Schnurr is a superb guide through it.&” —Mark Athitakis, author, The New Midwest: A Guide to Contemporary Fiction of the Great Lakes, Great Plains, and Rust Belt &“Delightful.&” —Luis Alberto Urrea, author, The Devil&’s Highway and Into the Beautiful North
Scandalicious: A Novel
by Allison HobbsFrom the bestselling author of Double Dippin&’ and Big Juicy Lips—scandal abounds as a husband, his wife—and their lovers—become entangled in a dangerously delicious dance of revenge, lust, and deception.Solay is the proud owner of Scandalicious, a trendy cupcake boutique that&’s raking in the dough. Practically married to her business, Solay does not have time for romance or its complications. What she needs is a friend with benefits. That&’s when Lincoln steps into her bakery. Lincoln has been a faithful husband for seven years. His world collapses when he discovers that his trophy wife has been cheating. In order to save their marriage, they must make some drastic changes. Could an open marriage be the solution? Lincoln is free to have as many meaningless flings he desires in a newly open marriage, but forming emotional connections wasn&’t a part of the deal. So when he and Solay begin to fall for each other, Lincoln&’s marriage and family is at risk. Worlds spiral out of control when they are confronted with the reality that the desire for true love with one person is an innate yearning of the heart. What happens when you combine sweet treats, explosive sex, and dirty little secrets is absolutely Scandalicious!
Liz: An Intimate Biography of Elizabeth Taylor (updated with a new chapter)
by C. David HeymannElizabeth Taylor's own story was more dramatic than any part she ever played on the screen. C. David Heymann brings her magnificently to life in this acclaimed biography--updated with a new chapter covering her final years.She was an icon, one of the most watched, photographed, and gossiped-about personalities of our time. Child star, daughter of a controlling stage mother, Oscar-winning actress, seductress and eight-time wife, mother of four children and grandmother of ten, champion of funding for AIDS research, purveyor of perfumes and jewelry, close friend of celebrities and tycoons—Elizabeth Taylor, for almost eight decades, played most completely, beautifully, cunningly, flamboyantly, and scandalously her greatest role of all: herself.The basis of an Emmy Award-nominated miniseries, Liz portrays Taylor’s life and career in fascinating, revealing detail and includes an additional new chapter, bringing her beloved fans up to date on her final years. By way of more than a thousand interviews with stars, directors, producers, designers, friends, family, business associates, and employees and through extensive research among previously disclosed court, business, medical, and studio documents, bestselling author Heymann reminds readers of her very public escapades and unveils her most private moments.Here are the highs and lows of her film career and the intimate circumstances of her marriages to Nicky Hilton, Michael Wilding, Mike Todd, Eddie Fisher, Richard Burton, Senator John Warner, and Larry Fortensky. Here, too, is the truth about Taylor’s father and her friendships with leading men Montgomery Clift, James Dean, and Rock Hudson, as well as with the eccentric Malcolm Forbes and Michael Jackson. From her illnesses, injuries, weight issues, and battles against drug and alcohol, to her sexual exploits, diamond-studded adventures, and tumultuous love affairs, this is the enormously contradictory and glamorous life of Hollywood’s last great star.
Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness?: What It Means to Be Black Now
by TouréIn this provocative book, writer, and cultural critic Touré explores the concept of Post-Blackness: the ability for someone to be rooted in but not restricted by their race. Touré begins his book by examining the concept of &“Post-Blackness,&” a term that defines artists who are proud to be Black, but don't want to be limited by identity politics and boxed in by race. He soon discovers that the desire to be rooted in but not constrained by Blackness is everywhere. In Who&’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? he argues that Blackness is infinite, that any identity imaginable is Black, and that all expressions of Blackness are legitimate. Here, Touré divulges his own intimate, funny, and painful experiences of how race and racial expectations have shaped his life. He explores how the concept of Post-Blackness functions in politics, society, psychology, art, culture, and more. He knew he could not tackle this topic all on his own so he turned to 105 of the most important luminaries of our time for frank and thought-provoking opinions, including the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Cornel West, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Malcolm Gladwell, Michael Eric Dyson, Melissa Harris-Perry, Harold Ford Jr., Kara Walker, Kehinde Wiley, Glenn Ligon, Paul Mooney, New York Governor David Paterson, Greg Tate, Aaron McGruder, Soledad O'Brien, Kamala Harris, Chuck D, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and many others. By engaging this brilliant, eclectic group, and employing his signature insight, courage, and wit, Touré delivers a clarion call on race in America and how we can change our perceptions for a better future. Destroying the notion that there is a correct way of being Black, Who&’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? will change how we perceive race forever.
Book of Dreams: A Novel
by Davis BunnFor Dr. Elena Burroughs, life is divided into two chapters—before and after the death of her husband. Today marks the point that her span of being a wife is equal to her span of being a widow. Even her success as a psychologist and her worldwide acclaim for a book on the interpretation of dreams is dimmed by an unspoken If only. Then a new patient arrives, one so private only her first name is given. Impeccably dressed and escorted by two bodyguards, Sandra recounts a frightening series of recurrent nightmares. Elena agrees to consider her case more carefully, convinced that something ominous may be at work here. Elena’s interpretation of her dreams confirms that, indeed, the new patient and her family confront a powerful global network of dangerous forces. As the story unfolds, they face a key question of the Christian life: How do you understand and fulfill the will of God?
Loons of New Hampshire: Preserving a Natural Treasure (Natural History)
by Glenn A. KnoblockNoted for its stunning plumage and haunting cries, the common loon is an iconic symbol of nature in the Granite State. Once a familiar site on local ponds and lakes, by the early twentieth century their numbers had dwindled due to human activity. By the 1970s less than two hundred remained. It was only with the formation of the Loon Preservation Committee in 1975 by pioneer conservationist Rawson Wood that the plight of loons in New Hampshire changed for the better. Author Glenn Knoblock, in collaboration with leading experts from the organization, reveals the sometimes-mysterious nature of this beloved bird, its presence throughout the state's history, the threats it faces today and the extensive efforts to recover the population. The Loon Preservation Committee is the only organization in New Hampshire working directly on their behalf. A portion of the proceeds of the sales of this book will go directly to the organization to fund ongoing conservation efforts.
Gone the Hard Road: A Memoir
by Lee Martin"Count your blessings," his mother told him, "Think of everything good in your life."Pulitzer Prize finalist Lee Martin has done it again. Building from his acclaimed first memoir, From Our House, which recounts the farming accident that cost his father both his hands, Gone the Hard Road is the story of Beulah Martin's endurance and sacrifice as a mother, and the gift of imagination she offered her son. Martin unfolds the world she created for him within their unsettled family life, from the first time she read to him in a doctor's office waiting room, to enrolling him in a children's book club, to the books she bought him in high school. Gone the Hard Road portrays Beulah's selflessness as the family moved around the Midwest, sometimes in the face of her husband's opposition, to show her son a different way of being. Rather than concentrate on the life his father threatened to destroy, as Martin's previous memoirs do, Gone the Hard Road offers the counternarrative of a loving mother and the creative life she made possible, in spite of the eventual cost to herself. A poignant, honest, and moving read, Gone the Hard Road will stay with anyone who has ever struggled to find their place in the world.
The Empire of Illusion (Global African Voices)
by Aminata Sow FallIn Senegal, three modest families share a courtyard. This common space is a small paradise where they meet to cook, dine, talk, evoke memories, and grow together. At one Sunday family gathering, the usual post-meal conversation turns tense when Sada's adolescent son, Dieìry, asks why his father was so friendly with a government official at a televised ribbon-cutting the day before. The conversation quickly devolves into one about respect and duty.In Empire of Illusion, legendary Senegalese novelist Aminata Sow Fall, explores the powerful themes of family, respect, and ethics. What respect does a son owe his father—and vice versa? How does a family maintain a balance of debate and respect? How does a person maintain self-respect when forced to swim in ethically muddy waters? Aminata Sow Fall, the matriarch of Senegalese social-realist fiction delivers yet another trenchant examination of her society, and of the universal challenge of finding, keeping, and giving respect to oneself and others.
Abiding Grace: Time, Modernity, Death (Religion And Postmodernism Ser.)
by Mark C. TaylorPost-war, post-industrialism, post-religion, post-truth, post-biological, post-human, post-modern. What succeeds the post- age? Mark C. Taylor returns here to some of his central philosophical preoccupations and asks: What comes after the end? Abiding Grace navigates the competing Hegelian and Kierkegaardian trajectories born out of the Reformation and finds Taylor arguing from spaces in between, showing how both narratives have shaped recent philosophy and culture. For Hegel, Luther’s internalization of faith anticipated the modern principle of autonomy, which reached its fullest expression in speculative philosophy. The closure of the Hegelian system still endures in the twenty-first century in consumer society, financial capitalism, and virtual culture. For Kierkegaard, by contrast, Luther’s God remains radically transcendent, while finite human beings and their world remain fully dependent. From this insight, Heidegger and Derrida developed an alternative view of time in which a radically open future breaks into the present to transform the past, demonstrating that, far from autonomous, life is a gift from an Other that can never be known. Offering an alternative genealogy of deconstruction that traces its pedigree back to readings of Paul by way of Luther, Abiding Grace presents a thoroughgoing critique of modernity and postmodernity’s will to power and mastery. In this new philosophical and theological vision, history is not over and the future remains endlessly open.
The Reach of Rome: A History of the Roman Imperial Frontier, 1st–5th Centuries AD
by Derek WilliamsThe Roman Empire was one of the most powerful forces in history. However, few people realize that this vast empire was guarded by one frontier, a series of natural and man-made barriers, including Hadrian's Wall. It is impossible to have a true understanding of the Roman Empire without first investigating the scope of this amazing frontier.The boundary ran for roughly 4,000 miles--from Britain to Morocco via the Rhine, the Danube, the Euphrates, the Syrian Desert, and the Saharan fringes; reinforced by walls, ditches, palisades, watchtowers, and forts. It absorbed virtually the whole imperial army, enclosed three and a half million square miles, and defended forty provinces (now thirty countries) and perhaps eighty million Roman subjects. In protecting the empire the frontier made a substantial contribution to the Pax Romana and ultimately to preserving the inheritance of future Europe. Yet this static mode of defense ran counter to Rome's tradition of mobile warfare and her taste for glory, born of centuries of conquest. The emperors' choice of a passive strategy promoted lassitude and conservatism, allowing the military initiative slowly to pass into barbarian hands.The Reach of Rome is the first book to describe the entire length of the amazing imperial frontier. It traces the political forces that created it and portrays those who commanded and manned it, as well as those against whom it was held. It relates the frontier's rise, pre-eminence, crises, and collapse and assesses its meaning for history and its legacies to the post-Roman world. Finally, it also tells the story of the explorers who rediscovered its lost works and describes the nature and location of the surviving remains. Includes thirty beautifully designed maps.
Addiction (Peter Zak Mysteries #2)
by G. H. EphronAmnesia, G.H. Ephron's acclaimed debut, introduced forensic neuropsychologist and expert defense witness Dr. Peter Zak. Returning in Addiction, Peter is back in the thick of things at the Pearce Psychiatric Center, coping with patients as well as everyday average administrative nightmares at the hospital, like budgetary concerns, construction, and colleagues' drug trials. And then the worst nightmare of all-the murder of a colleague.Such an event, if it weren't devastating enough, rekindles Peter's memories of the murder of his wife, which left Peter emotionally shattered and isolated; he's only recently begun to emerge. But he can't retreat this time; he must use his expertise to help reconstruct this baffling and intensely personal killing.Peter discovers his friend and former lover, Pearce psychiatrist Channing Temple, dead from a gunshot wound on hospital grounds. Her 16-year-old daughter Olivia is standing over the body, holding a gun. Did Olivia, who has been abusing Ritalin and other drugs, kill her mother? Peter thinks not, but she is quickly arraigned for murder, and he has only two weeks to find the killer before Olivia is sent to prison. In this tense and compelling second installment in a highly lauded series, the talented writing team known as G.H. Ephron tackles the dangers and misconceptions surrounding addiction...and the chaos of murder.
The Nonsense of Kant and Lewis Carroll: Unexpected Essays on Philosophy, Art, Life, and Death
by Ben-Ami ScharfsteinWhat if Immanuel Kant floated down from his transcendental heights, straight through Alice’s rabbit hole, and into the fabulous world of Lewis Carroll? For Ben-Ami Scharfstein this is a wonderfully instructive scenario and the perfect way to begin this wide-ranging collection of decades of startlingly synthesized thought. Combining a deep knowledge of psychology, cultural anthropology, art history, and the history of religions—not to mention philosophy—he demonstrates again and again the unpredictability of writing and thought and how they can teach us about our experiences. Scharfstein begins with essays on the nature of philosophy itself, moving from an autobiographical account of the trials of being a comparativist to philosophy’s function in the outside world to the fear of death in Kant and Hume. From there he explores an impressive array of art: from China and Japan to India and the West; from an essay on sadistic and masochistic body art to one on the epistemology of the deaf and the blind. He then returns to philosophy, writing on Machiavelli and political ruthlessness, then on the ineffable, and closes with a review of Walter Kaufmann’s multivolume look at the essence of humanity, Discovering the Mind. Altogether, these essays are a testament to adventurous thought, the kind that leaps to the furthest reaches of the possible.
What So Proudly We Hailed: Francis Scott Key, A Life
by Marc LeepsonWhat So Proudly We Hailed is the first full-length biography of Francis Scott Key in more than 75 years. In this fascinating look at early America, historian Marc Leepson explores the life and legacy of Francis Scott Key. Standing alongside Betsy Ross, Thomas Paine, Patrick Henry, Paul Revere, and John Hancock in history, Key made his mark as an American icon by one single and unforgettable act, writing "The Star-Spangled Banner." Among other things, Leepson reveals:• How the young Washington lawyer found himself in Baltimore Harbor on the night of September 13-14, 2014• The mysterious circumstances surrounding how the poem he wrote, first titled "The Defense of Ft. M'Henry," morphed into the National Anthem• Key's role in forming the American Colonization Society, and his decades-long fervent support for that controversial endeavor that sent free blacks to Africa• His adamant opposition to slave trafficking and his willingness to represent slaves and freed men and women for free in Washington's courts• Key's role as a confidant of President Andrew Jackson and his work in Jackson's "kitchen cabinet"• Key's controversial actions as U.S. Attorney during the first race riot in Washington, D.C., in 1835. Publishing to coincide with the 200th anniversary of "The Star Spangled Banner" in 2014, What So Proudly We Hailed reveals unexplored details of the life of an American patriot whose legacy has been largely unknown until now.
Deleuze, Bergson, Merleau-Ponty: The Logic and Pragmatics of Creation, Affective Life, and Perception
by Dorothea E. OlkowskiDeleuze, Bergson, Merleau-Ponty: The Logic and Pragmatics of Creation, Affective Life, and Perception offers the only full-length examination of the relationships between Deleuze, Bergson and Merleau-Ponty. Henri Bergson (1859–1941), Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961), and Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) succeeded one another as leading voices in French philosophy over a span of 136 years. Their relationship to one another's work involved far more than their overlapping lifetimes. Bergson became both the source of philosophical insight and a focus of criticism for Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze. Deleuze criticized Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology as well as his interest in cognitive and natural science. Author Dorothea Olkowski points out that each of these philosophers situated their thought in relation to their understandings of crucial developments and theories taken up in the history and philosophy of science, and this has been difficult for Continental philosophy to grasp. She articulates the differences between these philosophers with respect to their disparate approaches to the physical sciences and with how their views of science function in relation to their larger philosophical projects. In Deleuze, Bergson, Merleau-Ponty, Olkowski examines the critical areas of the structure of time and memory, the structure of consciousness, and the question of humans' relation to nature. She reveals that these philosophers are working from inside one another's ideas and are making strong claims about time, consciousness, reality, and their effects on humanity that converge and diverge. The result is a clearer picture of the intertwined workings of Continental philosophy and its fundamental engagement with the sciences.