New Releases by David

Israel describes itself as a Jewish state. What, then, is the status of the one-fifth of its citizens who are not Jewish? Are they Israelis, or are they Palestinians? Or are they a people without a country? How will a Palestinian state--if it is established--influence the sense of belonging and identity of Palestinian Israeli citizens? Based on conversations with Palestinians in Israel, Sleeping on a Wire, like The Yellow Wind, is essential reading for anyone trying to understand the Middle East today.

Fully updated and revised with over 100 new saints, the fifth edition of this well-respected and enjoyed dictionary features concise accounts of the lives, cults, and artistic associations of over 1,400 saints, from the famous to the obscure. This edition includes a new appendix on pilgrimage sights in Europe.

The Canadian Senate in Bicameral Perspective is the first book-length scholarly study of the Senate in over a quarter century and the first such analysis of the upper house as one chamber of a bicameral legislature. David E. Smith''s aim is to demonstrate the inter-relationship of the two chambers and the constraint this poses for Senate reform. He analyzes past literature on the Senate and current proposals for reform such as Triple-E Senate drawing detailed comparisons between Canada''s upper chamber and the upper chambers of Australia, the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. There is a revival of interest and literature abroad in upper chambers and also in bicameralism. Using Parliamentary debates and committee reports, as well as a broad reading of comparative literature, The Canadian Senate in Bicameral Perspective sets the Canadian Senate into this international milieu, contextualizing the debate and arguing for a renewed investigation into its future.

Compellingly written and even-handed in its judgments, this is by far the clearest account of what has happened through the years in the Northern Ireland conflict, and why. After a chapter of background on the period from 1921 to 1963, it covers the ensuing period-the descent into violence, the hunger strikes, the Anglo-Irish accord, the bombers in England-to the present shaky peace process. Behind the deluge of information and opinion about the conflict, there is a straightforward and gripping story. Mr. McKittrick and Mr. McVea tell that story clearly, concisely, and, above all, fairly, avoiding intricate detail in favor of narrative pace and accessible prose. They describe and explain a lethal but fascinating time in Northern Ireland''s history, which brought not only death, injury, and destruction but enormous political and social change. They close on an optimistic note, convinced that while peace-if it comes-will always be imperfect, a corner has now been decisively turned. The book includes a detailed chronology, statistical tables, and a glossary of terms.

Find out how work life, domestic life, and leisure-time activities were affected by these factors as well as by the politics of the time. Details of matters such as the creation of the pickup truck, the development of radio programming, and the first mass use of cosmetics provide an enjoyable read that brings the era of "The Roaring Twenties" and "The Great Depression" clearly into focus."--BOOK JACKET.

Whether seen as a land of opportunity or as paradise lost, the American West took shape in the nation''s imagination with the help of those who wrote about it; but two groups who did much to shape that perception are often overlooked today. Promoters trying to lure settlers and investors to the West insisted that the frontier had already been tamed-that the only frontiers remaining were those of opportunity. Through posters, pamphlets, newspaper articles, and other printed pieces, these boosters literally imagined places into existence by depicting backwater areas as settled, culturally developed regions where newcomers would find none of the hardships associated with frontier life. Quick on their heels, some of the West''s original settlers had begun publishing their reminiscences in books and periodicals and banding together in pioneer societies to sustain their conception of frontier heritage. Their selective memory focused on the savage wilderness they had tamed, exaggerating the past every bit as much as promoters exaggerated the present. Although they are generally seen today as unscrupulous charlatans and tellers of tall tales, David Wrobel reveals that these promoters and reminiscers were more significant than their detractors have suggested. By exploring the vast literature produced by these individuals from the end of the Civil War through the 1920s, he clarifies the pivotal impact of their works on our vision of both the historic and mythic West. In examining their role in forging both sense of place within the West and the nation''s sense of the West as a place, Wrobel shows that these works were vital to the process of identity formation among westerners themselves and to the construction of a "West" in the national imagination. Wrobel also sheds light on the often elitist, sometimes racist legacies of both groups through their characterizations of Native Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, and Asian Americans. In the era Wrobel examines, promoters painted the future of each western place as if it were already present, while the old-timers preserved the past as if it were still present. But, as he also demonstrates, that West has not really changed much: promoters still tout its promise, while old-timers still try to preserve their selective memories. Even relatively recent western residents still tap into the region''s mythic pioneer heritage as they form their attachments to place. Promised Lands shows us that the West may well move into the twenty-first century, but our images of it are forever rooted in the nineteenth.

A new collection from David Sedaris is cause for jubilation. His recent move to Paris has inspired hilarious pieces, including Me Talk Pretty One Day, about his attempts to learn French. His family is another inspiration. You Cant Kill the Rooster is a portrait of his brother who talks incessant hip-hop slang to his bewildered father. And no one hones a finer fury in response to such modern annoyances as restaurant meals presented in ludicrous towers and cashiers with 6-inch fingernails. Compared by The New Yorker to Twain and Hawthorne, Sedaris has become one of our best-loved authors. Sedaris is an amazing reader whose appearances draw hundreds, and his performancesincluding a jaw-dropping impression of Billie Holiday singing I wish I were an Oscar Meyer weinerare unforgettable. Sedariss essays on living in Paris are some of the funniest hes ever written. At last, someone even meaner than the French! The sort of blithely sophisticated, loopy humour that might have resulted if Dorothy Parker and James Thurber had had a love child. Entertainment Weekly on Barrel Fever Sidesplitting Not one of the essays in this new collection failed to crack me up; frequently I was helpless. The New York Times Book Review on Naked

Articulates a metaphysical position capable of rendering both science and religious experience simultaneously and mutually intelligible.

THE WAGES OF WHITENESS provides an original study of the formative years of working-class racism in the United States. In an Afterword to this second edition, Roediger discusses recent studies of whiteness and the changing face of labor itself--then surveys criticism of his work. He accepts the views of some critics but challenges others.

This text focuses on what it means to be Jewish in America and the different positions held within the Jewish community on past and present church-state issues - whether Orthodox Jews in the military should wear yarmulkes while in uniform - and if Jewish prisoners have a right to Kosher food.

A gargantuan, mind-altering comedy about the Pursuit of Happiness in America set in an addicts'' halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwed-up family to come along in recent fiction, Infinite Jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment affects our need to connect with other people; and about what the pleasures we choose say about who we are. Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy, Infinite Jest bends every rule of fiction without sacrificing for a moment its own entertainment value. It is an exuberant, uniquely American exploration of the passions that make us human - and one of those rare books that renew the idea of what a novel can do.

Anna Fierling tries to hold her family together during the Thirty Years War.

In a well-reasoned, extensively researched analysis, David Korten exposes the harmful effects of economic globalization; sets out the underlying causes of today''s social, economic, environmental, and political crises; and outlines a strategy for creating localized economics that empower people and communities within a system of global cooperation.

Entertaining and scrupulously researched, Chicago ''68 reconstructs the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago—an epochal moment in American cultural and political history. By drawing on a wide range of sources, Farber tells and retells the story of the protests in three different voices, from the perspectives of the major protagonists—the Yippies, the National Mobilization to End the War, and Mayor Richard J. Daley and his police. He brilliantly recreates all the excitement and drama, the violently charged action and language of this period of crisis, giving life to the whole set of cultural experiences we call "the sixties." "Chicago ''68 was a watershed summer. Chicago ''68 is a watershed book. Farber succeeds in presenting a sensitive, fairminded composite portrait that is at once a model of fine narrative history and an example of how one can walk the intellectual tightrope between ''reporting one''s findings'' and offering judgements about them."—Peter I. Rose, Contemporary Sociology

Through an examination of material and institutional circumstances, through the study of work shop practices and of technical and aesthetic experimentation, this book seeks to give an account of the ways in which Renaissance prints were realized, distributed, acquired, and handled by their public.

Paul Revere''s midnight ride looms as an almost mythical event in American history--yet it has been largely ignored by scholars and left to patriotic writers and debunkers. Now one of the foremost American historians offers the first serious look at the events of the night of April 18, 1775--what led up to it, what really happened, and what followed--uncovering a truth far more remarkable than the myths of tradition. In Paul Revere''s Ride, David Hackett Fischer fashions an exciting narrative that offers deep insight into the outbreak of revolution and the emergence of the American republic. Beginning in the years before the eruption of war, Fischer illuminates the figure of Paul Revere, a man far more complex than the simple artisan and messenger of tradition. Revere ranged widely through the complex world of Boston''s revolutionary movement--from organizing local mechanics to mingling with the likes of John Hancock and Samuel Adams. When the fateful night arrived, more than sixty men and women joined him on his task of alarm--an operation Revere himself helped to organize and set in motion. Fischer recreates Revere''s capture that night, showing how it had an important impact on the events that followed. He had an uncanny gift for being at the center of events, and the author follows him to Lexington Green--setting the stage for a fresh interpretation of the battle that began the war. Drawing on intensive new research, Fischer reveals a clash very different from both patriotic and iconoclastic myths. The local militia were elaborately organized and intelligently led, in a manner that had deep roots in New England. On the morning of April 19, they fought in fixed positions and close formation, twice breaking the British regulars. In the afternoon, the American officers switched tactics, forging a ring of fire around the retreating enemy which they maintained for several hours--an extraordinary feat of combat leadership. In the days that followed, Paul Revere led a new battle-- for public opinion--which proved even more decisive than the fighting itself. When the alarm-riders of April 18 took to the streets, they did not cry, "the British are coming," for most of them still believed they were British. Within a day, many began to think differently. For George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Thomas Paine, the news of Lexington was their revolutionary Rubicon. Paul Revere''s Ride returns Paul Revere to center stage in these critical events, capturing both the drama and the underlying developments in a triumphant return to narrative history at its finest.

Gilgamesh is the great epic of ancient Mesopotamia, one of the oldest works in world literature, contemporary with the oldest parts of the Bible. It is the story of a legendary king who achieves heroic victories with the help of the wild man Enkidu; but when his friend dies, Gilgamesh goes in search of the way to escape death, a secret he can only learn from the one man who survived the Great Flood.David Ferry''s new rendering is as lucid and lively as Robert Fitzgerald''s Homer and Richmond Lattimore''s Virgil, but his is more a transformation than a translation. Ferry''s poetry combines faithful attention to the literal meanings of the original with a fine sense for the poetic qualities that make Gilgamesh not only an important docu-ment of ancient Mesopotamia but also a profoundly moving story of the love between companions and the terrible inevitability of death. Gilgamesh is a new masterwork of English poetry, as much Ferry''s own as The Vanity of Human Wishes is Johnson''s rather than Juvenal''s.This edition also includes Ferry''s version of the related Babylonian poem, Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Nether World, as well as an introduction by William L. Moran, Mellon Professor of Humanities at Harvard University.

Acknowledgments p. xi Introduction p. 3 1 The Meaning of Tradition p. 8 2 Tradition Under Stress p. 20 3 Shaking the Foundations p. 40 4 Survivals and Fabrications p. 62 5 Rethinking Tradition p. 77 6 Reappropiating Tradition Through Its Traces p. 92 7 Subversive Genealogy p. 107 8 The Tactics of Tradition p. 120 9 Conclusion p. 131 Notes p. 137 Bibliography p. 159 Index p. 171.

Calling on his unique perspective as playwright, screenwriter, and director of his own critically acclaimed movies, House of Games, and Things Change, David Mamet illuminates how a film comes to be - (from cover).

This book tells an extraordinary story of the people of early New England and their spiritual lives. It is about ordinary people--farmers, housewives, artisans, merchants, sailors, aspiring scholars--struggling to make sense of their time and place on earth. David Hall describes a world of religious consensus and resistance: a variety of conflicting beliefs and believers ranging from the committed core to outright dissenters. He reveals for the first time the many-layered complexity of colonial religious life, and the importance within it of traditions derived from those of the Old World. We see a religion of the laity that was to merge with the tide of democratic nationalism in the nineteenth century, and that remains with us today as the essence of Protestant America.

David Bennett presents a ground-breaking historical analysis of the forces shaping nativist and counter-subversive activity in America from colonial times to the present. He demonstrates that in this nation of immigrants the American Right did not emerge from postfeudal parties of privilege or from the social chaos that bred a Hitler or Mussolini in Europe. It arose instead in antialien movements, repeatedly fueled by the burning desire to answer the question, "Who are the real Americans?" Beginning with the Know-Nothings and the American Protective Association of the nineteenth century, through the Red Scare of 1919 and the Ku Klux Klan of the twenties, to the Coughlin movement of the thirties, McCarthyism and the Birch Society in postwar America and, finally, the neofascists and New Right of the eighties, Bennett impartially views the concerns of right-wing movements from the perspective of their own fears and anxieties. He shows in a panoramic way how right-wing movements in this country evolved from movements against "un-American" peoples to movements against ideas that are considered by some to be alien and un-American. Bennett examines today''s religious Right and political "hard right" -- the worlds of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Richard Viguerie, Paul Weyrich, and their colleagues. This new political force, which arose out of the upheavals of the sixties and the disappointments of the seventies, differs from earlier ones in that the target is no longer foreign influences but perceived evils within our own society. Bennett concludes this important book by suggesting that the political extremism of the Right will remain a powerful force in American life.

David Friedrich Strauss''s Das Leben Jesu kritisch bearbeitet (1835) brought about a new dawn in Biblical criticism by applying the ''myth theory'' to the life of Jesus. Strauss treated the Gospel narrative like any other historical work, and denied all supernatural elements in the Gospels. Das Leben Jesu created an overnight sensation and Strauss became embroiled in fierce controversy. This earliest English version of 1846 was translated by the novelist George Eliot, and was her first published book.