Most Popular Books by Paul Lewis

What do Jon Stewart, Freddy Krueger, Patch Adams, and George W. Bush have in common? As Paul Lewis shows in Cracking Up, they are all among the ranks of joke tellers who aim to do much more than simply amuse. Exploring topics that range from the sadistic mockery of Abu Ghraib prison guards to New Age platitudes about the healing power of laughter, from jokes used to ridicule the possibility of global climate change to the heartwarming performances of hospital clowns, Lewis demonstrates that over the past thirty years American humor has become increasingly purposeful and embattled. Navigating this contentious world of controversial, manipulative, and disturbing laughter, Cracking Up argues that the good news about American humor in our time—that it is delightful, relaxing, and distracting—is also the bad news. In a culture that both enjoys and quarrels about jokes, humor expresses our most nurturing and hurtful impulses, informs and misinforms us, and exposes as well as covers up the shortcomings of our leaders. Wondering what’s so funny about a culture determined to laugh at problems it prefers not to face, Lewis reveals connections between such seemingly unrelated jokers as Norman Cousins, Hannibal Lecter, Rush Limbaugh, Garry Trudeau, Jay Leno, Ronald Reagan, Beavis and Butt-Head, and Bill Clinton. The result is a surprising, alarming, and at times hilarious argument that will appeal to anyone interested in the ways humor is changing our cultural and political landscapes.

Political Parties in Post-Communist Eastern Europe is the first textbook to survey the course of party developments in eastern Europe as a whole in the post-Communist period. This book relates the specifics of the post-communist situation to the broader picture of the early stages of party development in western Europe and also to contemporary models of party organisation in established democracies. The book includes: · a brief historical introduction to the context of post-communist change · the process of competitive party formation and democratic elections · the development of independent parties; their ideologies, and electoral volatility · the structure and level of organisation developed by new parties · an analysis of stable party systems which have emerged in eastern Europe and the contribution they make to emerging democracies in the region Party Politics in Post-Communist Eastern Europe will be a comprehensive and invaluable resource, accessible to undergraduates of politics and European studies, as well as the non-specialist reader.

Sunthorn Phu (1786–1855) is an unlikely figure through which to understand nineteenth-century Buddhism in Siam. Despite being described as a “drunken writer” by the court astrologer after his death, he is now the national poet of Thailand. Yet the majority of Sunthorn Phu’s literary accomplishments, including many of the nirat journeying poems translated in this volume, are scarcely available in English. In A Drunken Bee, Paul Lewis McBain argues that the irreverent, rebellious, and parodic voice of Sunthorn Phu is an invaluable resource for understanding the Buddhism of early Bangkok. A wealth of information about the conflicts and contradictions of the religious thought of this period can be found in the ways in which the poet describes his local landscape. Following Sunthorn Phu on his journeys, readers encounter cities of celebration and rivers of sadness; kingly processions, railways, and unruly pilgrims on their way to the Saraburi Buddha Footprint; forests of spirit-guardians; and life-prolonging alchemical materials as well as the semimythical oceans of Buddhist cosmology used to make sense of the new, more varied world opening up to Siam in the nineteenth century. In this volume McBain employs theories not only from literary studies but also from the interdisciplinary study of landscapes, applying an innovative approach to understanding how journeying poems may be used as critical sources for uncovering past ways of thinking with and within place. What emerges is one of the most colorful windows into the early modernity of Siam in the nineteenth century. The author convincingly showcases how the kingdom was already developing its own nascent individuality, irony, and skepticism, all broached by redefining Buddhist concepts. The book offers students and scholars of literature and religion new approaches to the study of journeying poems and how literary texts may be employed in landscape studies, as well as how religious affect may be tied with place.

In this book, an international team of specialists reflects, more than a dozen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, on the implications of that momentous conjuncture for the study of party politics in Europe. In particular, the authors and editors seek to address two inter-connected questions: To what extent is there evidence of convergence in patterns of party politics across Eastern and Western Europe? And how far has the theory of parties and party systems coped with the emergence of democratic politics in Eastern Europe? In a wideranging and stimulating set of essays, these issues are confronted in respect of themes such as the impact of institutional contexts like electoral systems and presidentialism, the evolving nature of cleavage structures, party organizational developments, and intra-party factionalism. This book will make a significant addition to any course reading list on comparative and party politics.

Along with plan and elevation, section is one of the essential representational techniques of architectural design; among architects and educators, debates about a project''s section are common and often intense. Until now, however, there has been no framework to describe or evaluate it. Manual of Section fills this void. Paul Lewis, Marc Tsurumaki, and David J. Lewis have developed seven categories of section, revealed in structures ranging from simple one-story buildings to complex structures featuring stacked forms, fantastical shapes, internal holes, inclines, sheared planes, nested forms, or combinations thereof. To illustrate these categories, the authors construct sixty-three intricately detailed cross-section perspective drawings of built projects—many of the most significant structures in international architecture from the last one hundred years—based on extensive archival research. Manual of Section also includes smart and accessible essays on the history and uses of section.