-
America's Public Lands: From Yellowstone to Smokey Bear and Beyond
Randall K. Wilson
Publication Date: 4-2014
How is it that the United States - the country that cherishes the ideal of private property more than any other in the world - has chosen to set aside nearly one-third of its land area as public lands? Considering this intriguing question, Randall K. Wilson traces the often-forgotten ideas of nature that have shaped the evolution of America's public land system. The result is a fresh and probing account of the most pressing policy and management challenges facing national parks, forests, rangelands, and wildlife refuges today. The author explores the dramatic story of the origins of the public domain, including the century-long effort to sell them off and the subsequent emergence of a national conservation ideal.
-
An Invitation to Abstract Mathematics
Bela Bajnok
Publication Date: 5-2013
This undergraduate textbook is intended primarily for a transition course into higher mathematics, although it is written with a broader audience in mind. The heart and soul of this book is problem solving, where each problem is carefully chosen to clarify a concept, demonstrate a technique, or to enthuse. The exercises require relatively extensive arguments, creative approaches, or both, thus providing motivation for the reader. With a unified approach to a diverse collection of topics, this text points out connections, similarities, and differences among subjects whenever possible. This book shows students that mathematics is a vibrant and dynamic human enterprise by including historical perspectives and notes on the giants of mathematics, by mentioning current activity in the mathematical community, and by discussing many famous and less well-known questions that remain open for future mathematicians. [From the publisher]
-
Women, Gender, and Print Culture in Eighteenth-Century Britain
Temma F. Berg and Sonia Kane
Publication Date: 10-2013
This edited collection, a tribute to the late noted eighteenth-century scholar Betty Rizzo, testifies to her influence as a researcher, writer, teacher, and mentor. The essays, written by a range of established and younger eighteenth-century specialists, expand on the themes important to Rizzo: the importance of the archive, the contributions of women writers to the canon of eighteenth-century literature and to an emerging print culture, the sometimes fraught relations within the eighteenth-century family, the relationship between life and literature, and, finally, the role of female companionship in women’s lives. Divided into three sections, “Living in the Eighteenth-Century Novel,” “Living in the Eighteenth-Century World,” and “Afterlives,” the fourteen essays that form the body of the collection treat such topics as epistolarity, fraternal relations in novels and in families, women and travel in Jane Austen’s novels, the pleasures and challenges of searching through archives to understand the complex entanglements of eighteenth-century families, the changing reception of Alexander Pope’s poetry, and intersections among race, class, gender, and sexuality in a famous early-nineteenth-century Scottish libel case. The final essay of the fourteen connects the archetypal eighteenth-century figure of the seduced and abandoned woman to Sophie Calle’s 2007 Venice Biennale exhibition entitled Take Care of Yourself, which the author reads as a direct descendant of the eighteenth-century letter novel. The book is framed by an introduction that situates the book as part of the ongoing redefinition of the archive of eighteenth-century literature and an afterword that gives a personal account of Rizzo’s career and her indelible legacy as friend, mentor, and professional model. The contributors use a variety of methods in their scholarship, but a common strand is archival research and close reading inflected by feminist analysis. The contributors to the volume practice the kind of scholarship Rizzo was known for—painstaking archival research and attention to the nuances of relationships among eighteenth-century women (and men)—and in so doing shed new light on a number of familiar and not-so-familiar eighteenth-century texts.
-
The Street Corner Marionettes of Mexico: A History of the Puppet Company
Lucio Espindola, Lourdes Pérez Gay, Amaranta Leyva, Cárdenas Noé, and Ronald Burgess
Publication Date: 6-2013
This is a translation from Spanish of the book titled, Marionetas de la Esquina Tras Bambalinas, which documents Las Marionetas de la Esquina, one of present-day Mexico’s longest enduring puppet theater groups. It’s the story of a small group’s obsession in perfecting an art form, in this case, one especially aimed at entertaining children.
-
Charles Dickens in Love
Robert Garnett
Publication Date: 12-2013
When Charles Dickens died in 1870 he was the best-known man in the English-speaking world—the pre-eminent Victorian celebrity. Yet when the first person named in his will turned out to be an unknown woman named Ellen Ternan, only a handful of people had any idea who she was, and her conspicuous presence in his will was a mystery.
She was not the first woman who had fired his imagination. As a young man he had fallen deeply in love with Maria Beadnell. A few years later he was stunned by the sudden death of his young sister-in-law, Mary Scott Hogarth, and worshiped her memory for the rest of his life.
Using hundreds of primary sources, Charles Dickens in Love narrates the story of the most intense romances of Dickens’s life, and shows how his novels both testify to his own strongest affections and serve as memorials to the young women he loved all too well, if not always wisely. [From the Publisher]
-
Gettysburg: The Last Invasion
Allen C. Guelzo
Publication Date: 2013
From the acclaimed Civil War historian, a brilliant new history—the most intimate and richly readable account we have had—of the climactic three-day battle of Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), which draws the reader into the heat, smoke, and grime of Gettysburg alongside the ordinary soldier, and depicts the combination of personalities and circumstances that produced the greatest battle of the Civil War, and one of the greatest in human history.
Of the half-dozen full-length histories of the battle of Gettysburg written over the last century, none dives down so closely to the experience of the individual soldier, or looks so closely at the sway of politics over military decisions, or places the battle so firmly in the context of nineteenth-century military practice. Allen C. Guelzo shows us the face, the sights, and the sounds of nineteenth-century combat: the lay of the land, the fences and the stone walls, the gunpowder clouds that hampered movement and vision; the armies that caroused, foraged, kidnapped, sang, and were so filthy they could be smelled before they could be seen; the head-swimming difficulties of marshaling massive numbers of poorly trained soldiers, plus thousands of animals and wagons, with no better means of communication than those of Caesar and Alexander.
What emerges is an untold story, from the trapped and terrified civilians in Gettysburg’s cellars to the insolent attitude of artillerymen, from the taste of gunpowder cartridges torn with the teeth to the sounds of marching columns, their tin cups clanking like an anvil chorus. Guelzo depicts the battle with unprecedented clarity, evoking a world where disoriented soldiers and officers wheel nearly blindly through woods and fields toward their clash, even as poetry and hymns spring to their minds with ease in the midst of carnage. Rebel soldiers look to march on Philadelphia and even New York, while the Union struggles to repel what will be the final invasion of the North. One hundred and fifty years later, the cornerstone battle of the Civil War comes vividly to life as a national epic, inspiring both horror and admiration. [From the Publisher]
-
A Woman’s Framework for a Successful Career and Life
James E. Hamerstone and Lindsay Musser Hough
Publication Date: 7-2013
Targeted specifically at women just entering or re-entering the workforce, A Woman's Framework for a Successful Career and Life is a comprehensive resource for any woman navigating her career while seeking balance in her life. The authors lay out the building blocks of a successful lifelong career, focusing on blending skills such as communication, negotiation, leadership, career path navigation, ambition, mentoring, work-life fit, and personal branding, all of which need to be done in a global environment. Each topic includes a summary of key research and offers realistic, concrete suggestions for how any woman can achieve success in both her career and life. [From the Publisher]
-
Religion: A Mosaic
Louis J. Hammann
Publication Date: 2-2013
Can we say of Religion what the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy said of Economics: It is not one homogeneous enterprise? If so, then what is religion as a plural phenomenon? Should we understand religious traditions as carriers of revealed truth in the current age of empirical science? Or should we appreciate the power of the human imagination to satisfy our curiosity? Can human ingenuity reconcile the psychological and historical biases of religious traditions? Can we see them as both individual and communal realities? I propose to understand religious traditions under the rubric of a metaphor. They are mosaics, subtle designs of human experiences-designs that have emerged from the human struggle of coping with the constant impulse to make sense of life. Human ingenuity is capable of creating counter-cultural communities that persist as chains of memory. Their historical function is celebrating relationships that define our destiny and who we are.
-
Congressional Parties, Institutional Ambition, and the Financing of Majority Control
Eric S. Heberlig and Bruce A. Larson
Publication Date: 4-2013
Close competition for majority party control of the U.S. House of Representatives has transformed the congressional parties from legislative coalitions into partisan fundraising machines. With the need for ever increasing sums of money to fuel the ongoing campaign for majority control, both Republicans and Democrats have made large donations to the party and its candidates mandatory for members seeking advancement within party and congressional committee hierarchies.
Eric S. Heberlig and Bruce A. Larson not only analyze this development, but also discuss its implications for American government and democracy. They address the consequences of selecting congressional leaders on the basis of their fundraising skills rather than their legislative capacity and the extent to which the battle for majority control leads Congress to prioritize short-term electoral gains over long-term governing and problem-solving. [From the publisher]
-
From German Prisoner of War to American Citizen: A Social History With 35 Interviews
Barbara S. Heisler
Publication Date: 8-2013
Among the many German immigrants to the United States over the years, one group is unusual: former prisoners of war who had spent between one and three years on American soil and who returned voluntarily as immigrants after the war. Drawing on archival sources and in-depth interviews with 35 former prisoners who immigrated, the book outlines the conditions and circumstances that defined their unusual experiences and traces their journeys from captive enemies to American citizens. Although the respondents came from different backgrounds, and arrived in America at different times between 1943 and 1945, their experiences as prisoners of war not only left an indelible impression on their minds, they also provided them with opportunities and resources that helped them leave Germany behind and return to the place "where we had the good life." [From the publisher]
-
The Power of Metaphor: Examining its Influence on Social Life
Mark J. Landau, Michael D. Robinson, and Brian P. Meier
Publication Date: 11-2013
This book explores the possibility that people understand abstract social concepts using metaphor, which is not simply a matter of words. Rather, it is a cognitive tool for understanding abstract concepts (such as morality) in terms of superficially dissimilar concepts that are relatively easier to comprehend (such as cleanliness). In the past decade, the development of a formal theoretical framework, labeled conceptual metaphor theory, has stimulated systematic empirical study on metaphor's role in social psychological phenomena. This book summarizes current knowledge and integrates recent developments in the topic of metaphor and in the cognitive underpinnings of social life. [From the publisher]
-
A Letter Concerning Toleration
John Locke and Kerry S. Walters
Publication Date: 6-2013
A critical edition of Locke's 1689 book, based on Locke's original Latin and its first (1690) English translation. Includes a 40-page Introduction, notes, and appendices of William Penn, Baruch Spinoza, Pierre Bayle, and Samuel von Pufendorf on religious toleration, and selections from the Locke-Proast debates.
-
Signaletics
Emilia A. Phillips
Publication Date: 9-2013
Signaletics pits the measured against the immeasurable, the body against identity, and the political against the personal. With a defunct nineteenth-century body measurement system of criminal identification as a foundation, the poems move in and out of history, only to arrive at the immediate voice of a speaker, distraught about the death of a child brother, the removal of a father, and the estrangement of the personal with the politics of her country.
-
James Buchanan and the Coming of the Civil War
John Quist and Michael J. Birkner
Publication Date: 3-2013
As James Buchanan took office in 1857, the United States found itself at a crossroads. Dissolution of the Union had been averted and the Democratic Party maintained control of the federal government, but the nation watched to see if Pennsylvania's first president could make good on his promise to calm sectional tensions.
Despite Buchanan's central role in a crucial hour in U.S. history, few presidents have been more ignored by historians. In assembling the essays for this volume, Michael Birkner and John Quist have asked leading scholars to reconsider whether Buchanan’s failures stemmed from his own mistakes or from circumstances that no president could have overcome.
Buchanan's dealings with Utah shed light on his handling of the secession crisis. His approach to Dred Scott reinforces the image of a president whose doughface views were less a matter of hypocrisy than a thorough identification with southern interests. Essays on the secession crisis provide fodder for debate about the strengths and limitations of presidential authority in an existential moment for the young nation.
Although the essays in this collection offer widely differing interpretations of Buchanan's presidency, they all grapple honestly with the complexities of the issues faced by the man who sat in the White House prior to the towering figure of Lincoln, and contribute to a deeper understanding of a turbulent and formative era. [From the publisher] -
The Birdsong Papers
Wilhelm Raabe and Michael Ritterson
Publication Date: 10-2013
This book, The Birdsong Papers, translated by Michael Ritterson with an introduction by Ritchie Robertson, is volume four in the MHRA New Translation series. It is the first English translation of Raabe’s novel Die Akten des Vogelsangs (1896), a mainstay of his reputation as a major German realist and pre-modernist writer.
-
The Seven Years' War in North America: A Brief History with Documents
Timothy J. Shannon
Publication Date: 8-2013
This volume reveals how the Seven Years’ War reshaped the geopolitical map of North America and the everyday lives of the peoples within it. The introduction surveys the war as both an international struggle for empire and an intercultural conflict involving Native Americans, French and British soldiers, and the ethnically and religiously diverse population of British North America. A rich collection of primary-source selections recaptures the experience of the war from multiple perspectives and is organized by key cultural, military, and diplomatic themes. Document headnotes, a chronology, questions to consider, and a bibliography enrich students’ understanding of this momentous conflict. [From the publisher]
-
American Odysseys: A History of Colonial North America
Timothy J. Shannon and David N. Gellman
Publication Date: 7-2013
Written in an engaging and student-friendly style, American Odysseys examines the entire period between 1492 and 1763, covering important topics that shaped the colonial experience across time and in a variety of places. Authors Timothy J. Shannon and David N. Gellman use a thematic approach, focusing on colonial development and integration within a wider Atlantic world. Each chapter begins with the story of an individual who experienced the wonder and terror of colonization firsthand, so that students can feel a human connection to each of these topics and themes. Taken together, these figures--Indians, servants, slaves, explorers, planters--embody the full array of peoples and cultures that gave the colonial era a trans-Atlantic, multicultural character. Each chapter also features a chronology of events described in that chapter. Maps and images throughout the book help visually orient readers to the stories that comprise this concise yet broad-ranging narrative. [From the publisher]
-
We Say NO! The Plain Man’s Guide to Pacifism
H.R. L. Sheppard and Kerry S. Walters
Publication Date: 9-2013
A classic defense of Christian pacifism, We Say NO! was published in 1935 by Anglican priest H.R.L. “Dick” Sheppard, who also founded the Peace Pledge Union, still going strong in Britain today. This critical edition includes an historical and thematic introduction, bibliography, and copious explanatory footnotes that annotate the text.
-
Shipwrecked in L.A.: Finding Meaning and Purpose When Your Dreams Crash
Christin N. Taylor
Publication Date: 4-2013
Most young adults encounter at least one "shipwreck" during their twenties. Everything you think you know about yourself, your life, your future, and even your faith suddenly breaks apart. You're left scrambling to construct a lifeboat that will take you back to the shore.
Christin Taylor knew how her life was going to turn out. She was going to be a missionary to the Hollywood film industry. But just eight weeks after moving to L.A., her hopes and dreams were shattered. The next four years found Christin circling around, into, and back out of the film industry, until she finally found her way home.
As Christin shares a compelling story about her life and work in Burbank, Hollywood, and Beverly Hills, she interacts with the best research on young-adult formation and development, guiding young adults through this tumultuous time as they try to pick up the pieces and find hope for the future. [From the Publisher]
-
Explosion on the Potomac: The 1844 Calamity Aboard the USS Princeton
Kerry S. Walters
Publication Date: 8-2013
In 1844, the USS Princeton was the most technologically sophisticated warship in the world. Its captain, Robert Stockton, and President John Tyler were both zealous expansionists, and they hoped that it would be the forerunner in a formidable steam-powered fleet. On a Potomac cruise intended to impress power brokers, the ship's main gun--the Peacemaker--exploded as the vessel neared Mount Vernon. Eight died horribly, while twenty others were injured. Two of Tyler's most important cabinet members were instantly lost, and the president himself had a near miss--making it the worst physical disaster to befall a presidential administration. The tragedy set off an unpredictable wave of events that cost Tyler a second term, nearly scuttled plans to add Texas to the Union and stirred up sectional rancor that drove the nation closer to civil war. [From the publisher]
-
Giving Up god… to Find God: Breaking Free of Idolatry
Kerry S. Walters
Publication Date: 9-2013
An exploration of the ways in which we genuflect to false gods, and what happens when we let them go and open ourselves to the experience of Love and Wisdom.
Kerry Walters unmasks the golden calves we have been taught to worship and enlightens us living in presence of Spirit. The false gods are:
The Genie god
The Patriot god
The By-the-Book god
My god
The Designer god
Whatever god
Sunday School god
Egghead god
The more idols we remove from our interior shrines the more space we open up for the real God and spiritual values that make a difference in our lives. The tools are detachment and discrimination, alert attentiveness, patience, and trust. The benefit of reading this book is spiritual clarity and assurance. [From the publisher] -
John Paul II: A Short Biography
Kerry S. Walters
Publication Date: 11-2013
Poet, philosopher, playwright, peacemaker, political activist, pope: this is a brief look at the rich life of Karol Wotyla, whom we know today as Pope John Paul II. He was the most widely traveled of all popes, and made pastoral visits to 129 countries in all. He was instrumental in bringing about the fall of communism in Poland; it is said that the attempt on his life in 1981 was in direct response to his efforts to bring down communism.
John Paul II was a man of deep Christian love and commitment. He balanced the traditions of the Church with a need to re-establish it as a viable and modern presence in the world. Though many felt that he was too much a conservative, he was guided by his belief in the Church as a redemptive organization, and worked to make it relevant to the lives of Catholics throughout the world.
John Paul II: A Short Biography highlights his early years, his lifelong devotion to Mary, his outreach to young people, and his role as intercessor in seeking reconciliation with institutions and peoples alienated from the Church by past actions. This is a book to be enjoyed and treasured as we witness the recognition given John Paul II as a saint for our times. [From the publisher] -
John XXIII: A Short Biography
Kerry S. Walters
Publication Date: 11-2013
His adult life was unremarkable; in his role as Papal Nuncio to France, he was considered an “affable amateur.” When he was elected pope in 1958, it was thought he would be a placeholder, someone who was easily controllable until the Curia could decide on a worthy successor. Instead, Giuseppe Roncalli, Pope John XXIII, distinguished himself by establishing a spirit of aggiornamento— “opening wide the windows of the Church”&mdashh;and convened the Second Vatican Council in 1962.
Walters brings you into the life and times of Pope John XXIII, from his simple upbringing as one of fourteen children growing up on a farm in Italy, to his seminary education and formative role models, through his ministry in the Church, leading up to his election as pope in 1958. Walters then focuses on the key ways Roncalli sought to reform the Church, and shepherd it into the twenty-first century.
Walters shows that what was perceived by the hierarchy as mediocrity was indeed a deep humility that enabled the pope to truly be a model of Christian discipleship. Il Buono Papa, the Good Pope, will inspire you with his love for God, for all people, and for the Church itself. This is a book to be enjoyed and treasured as we witness the recognition given John XXIII as a saint for our times. [From the publisher] -
Lincoln, the Rise of the Republicans, and the Coming of the Civil War: A Reference Guide
Kerry S. Walters
Publication Date: 8-2013
This book vividly depicts and clearly explains the events in the decades leading up to the Civil War that resulted from the controversy over expansion of slavery into the western territories. The chapters describe how this single issue drove a wedge through the country and spawned the creation of several new political parties, including the Republican Party; caused furious congressional debates; sparked violence in Kansas; increased sectional discord between North and South; and allowed Abraham Lincoln to rise from relative obscurity to become the first Republican president of the United States. The work also supplies two-dozen thumbnail sketches of the period's greatest statesmen and less-than-great presidents, including individuals such as James Buchanan, John C. Calhoun, Salmon P. Chase, Henry Clay, Stephen Douglas, and William Henry Seward. [From the publisher]
-
Blessed Peacemakers: 365 Extraordinary People Who Changed the World
Kerry S. Walters and Robin Jarrell
Publication Date: 2-2013
All of us yearn for a peaceable and just world, but some roll up their sleeves and set to work to make the dream real. Blessed Peacemakers celebrates 365 of them, one for each day of the year.
Their stories are richly diverse. They share a commitment to peace and justice, but the various contexts in which they work make each of their stories uniquely instructive. The peacemakers include women, men, and children from across the globe, spanning some twenty-five hundred years. Many are persons of faith, but some are totally secular. Some are well known, while others will be excitingly new. They are human rights and antiwar activists, scientists and artists, educators and scholars, songwriters and poets, film directors and authors, diplomats and economists, environmentalists and mystics, prophets and policymakers. Some are unlettered, but all are wise. A few died in the service of the dream. All sacrificed for it.
The world is a better place for the presence of blessed peacemakers. Their inspiring stories embolden readers to join them in nonviolent resistance to injustice and the creative pursuit of peace. [From the publisher]
Printing is not supported at the primary Gallery Thumbnail page. Please first navigate to a specific Image before printing.