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Geoffroy of Villehardouin, Marshal of Champagne: His Life and Memoirs of the Fourth Crusade (Medieval Societies, Religions, and Cultures)
by Theodore EvergatesGeoffroy of Villehardouin, Marshal of Champagne by Theodore Evergates traces the remarkable life of Geoffroy of Villehardouin (c. 1148–c. 1217) from his earliest years in Champagne through his last years in Greece after the crusade. The fourth son of a knight, Geoffroy became marshal of Champagne, principal negotiator in organizing the Fourth Crusade, chief of staff of the expedition to and conquest of Constantinople, garrison commander of Constantinople and, in his late fifties, field commander defending the Latin settlement in the Byzantine empire against invading Bulgarian armies and revolting Greek cities. Known for his diplomatic skills and rectitude, he served as the chief military advisor to Count Thibaut III of Champagne and later to Emperor Henry of Constantinople.Geoffroy is remarkable as well for dictating the earliest war memoir in medieval Europe, which is also the earliest prose narrative in Old French. Addressed to a home audience in Champagne, he described what he did, what he saw, and what he heard during his eight years on crusade and especially during the fraught period after the conquest of Constantinople. His memoir, The Book of the Conquest of Constantinople, furnishes a commander's retrospective account of the main events and inner workings of the crusade—the innumerable meetings and speeches, the conduct (not always commendable) of the barons, and the persistent discontent within the army—as well as a celebration of his own deeds as a diplomat and a military commander.
Eisenhower for Our Time (People for Our Time)
by Steven WagnerEisenhower for Our Time provides an introduction to the Eisenhower presidency, extracting lessons for today's world. Steven Wagner proposes that the need to maintain balance defines Eisenhower's presidency. Wagner examines a series of defining moments that were among Eisenhower's greatest challenges, some of which resulted in his greatest accomplishments: the decision to run for president, his political philosophy of the "Middle Way," the creation of a national security policy, the French Indochina War, Senator Joseph McCarthy, the Little Rock Desegregation Crisis, the Race for Space, and the famous Farewell Address. Wagner looks at Eisenhower's executive ability, leadership, decision making, and willingness to compromise, as well as the qualities of duty, integrity, and good character. The moments detailed in Eisenhower for Our Time show Eisenhower as a president intimately engaged in the decisions that defined America in his time and that apply to ours today. The President's actions place him among the most successful presidents and provide many lessons to guide us in our time and in the future.
To the Far North: Diary of a Russian World Traveler (NIU Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies)
by Ivan Nikolaevich Akif’ëvThis annotated translation of To the Far North presents the diary of a twenty-seven-year-old Russian physician who was part of the 1900 expedition to the Chukotka Peninsula to find gold. No other account so richly details life along the North Pacific Rim before World War I, especially from a Russian perspective. This volume relates the expedition's formation, development, and aftermath and offers unique insights on the region's place in both Russian policymaking and geopolitics. The illustrated diary includes picturesque descriptions of San Francisco, the Nome Gold Rush, Chukchi culture, Petropavlovsk, Vladivostok, and Nagasaki, Japan.Andrew A. Gentes's translation is based on an edition of Akifëv's book that was published in St. Petersburg in 1904. The diary shows how Russian and American views and cultural values clashed over a territory that is today more geopolitically important than ever. By documenting Akifëv's personal travels outside the expedition, To the Far North also demonstrates, in both human and personal terms, the role Russians played in shaping this region's history.
Borne by the River: Canoeing the Delaware from Headwaters to Home
by Rick Van NoyAfter a near-fatal stroke and a separation, amidst a global pandemic, Rick Van Noy decided to go for a paddle. In Borne by the River, he charts the story of discovery, and healing that came from this solo canoe journey. Paddling two hundred miles on the Delaware River to his boyhood home just upriver from Trenton, New Jersey, Van Noy contemplates his fate and life, as well as the simple joy of sitting in a small boat floating down a large river with his dog, Sully.Deftly combining memoir, natural and local history, and engaging reportage of his encounters with other paddlers and river enthusiasts, including members of the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania, Van Noy reveals deep and shifting layers of environmental, historical, cultural, and personal significance of the Delaware. Borne by the River reckons with the way that rivers braid into one's own life—thrilling rapids, eddying pauses, and life-changing rifts and falls. Van Noy rediscovers and shares how river journeys can scatter anxieties, wash away regrets, and recreate the spirit in its free-flowing currents.
An Irish Passion for Justice: The Life of Rebel New York Attorney Paul O'Dwyer
by Robert Polner Michael TubridyAn Irish Passion for Justice reveals the life and work of Paul O'Dwyer, the Irish-born and quintessentially New York activist, politician, and lawyer who fought in the courts and at the barricades for the rights of the downtrodden and the marginalized throughout the 20th century.Robert Polner and Michael Tubridy recount O'Dwyer's legal crusades, political campaigns, and civic interactions, deftly describing how he cut a principled and progressive path through New York City's political machinery and America's reactionary Cold War landscape. Polner and Tubridy's dynamic, penetrating depiction showcases O'Dwyer's consistent left-wing politics and defense of accused Communists in the labor movement, which exposed him to sharp criticism within and beyond the Irish-American community. Even so, his fierce beliefs, loyalty to his brother William, who was the city's mayor after World War II, and influence in Irish-American circles also inspired respect and support. Recognized by his gentle brogue and white pompadour, he fought for the creation of Israel, organized Black voters during the Civil Rights movement, and denounced the Vietnam War as an insurgent Democratic candidate for US Senate. Finally, he enlisted future president Bill Clinton to bring an end to the Troubles in Northern Ireland. As the authors demonstrate, O'Dwyer was both a man of his time and a politician beyond his years.An Irish Passion for Justice tells an enthralling and inspiring New York immigrant story that uncovers how one person, shaped by history and community, can make a difference in the world by holding true to their ideals.
Gandhi: Portrait of a Friend
by E Stanley Jones Foundation"On the day that Mahatma Gandhi was killed, I arrived in Delhi just an hour and a quarter before the tragedy ... the greatest tragedy since the Son of God died on the cross." So begins this compelling account of Gandhi by E. Stanley Jones, the world-renowned missionary evangelist to India during 40 seething years of struggle. Based on an intimate knowledge and understanding, Jones's revealing interpretation was written in gratitude to Gandhi, who, although they often disagreed, showed Jones "more of the spirit of Christ than perhaps any other . . . in East or West." "Martin Luther King, Jr., told me he owed a debt to my father for his book on Mahatma Gandhi. He had read many books on Gandhi, read his writings, but it was that particular book of my father's that had triggered his decision to use the method of ... nonviolence in his civil rights movement for his people." --Eunice Jones Mathews "Highly recommended."--Library Journal "To understand the meaning of this great leader ... read this book of interpretation."--Kirkus "Jones ... possesses a great gift of sympathetically interpreting the East to the West."--[London] Times Literary Supplement
The Boswell Legacy
by Kyla Titus David McCain Chica Boswell MinnerlyThe Boswell Sisters rose to stardom during the Great Depression and established an enormously successful career in a very short time as pioneers of early mass entertainment, through the new media of electrical recordings, radio networks, and movies. Along with Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, they led an American jazz "invasion" of Europe in 1933. They were admired by their frequent singing partner Bing Crosby, idolized by a struggling trio from Minneapolis who later gained fame as the Andrews Sisters, and praised as "the best act I ever followed" by a trouper named Bob Hope. Ella Fitzgerald consistently credited Connie Boswell as her main influence and Irving Berlin singled her out as his favorite interpreter of his songs. The beautiful and talented Boswells sold out stage shows from New York to London and the number of records they sold is estimated to be over 75 million. Then suddenly, it was over. The time has finally come to tell their story. THE BOSWELL LEGACY is the first full-scale biography of these icons of American music, written by Kyla Titus, the granddaughter of Vet Boswell and caretaker of the voluminous Boswell family archives, as only she can tell it. Within these pages, readers may discover the answers to questions left unanswered for decades. Why did the Boswell Sisters disband? What was the cause of Connie’s paralysis? Why are the Boswell Sisters not household names today? And so many more. Most importantly, readers will learn about the development of a unique musical style that is timeless--a legacy--that is still heralded almost a century later.
Kobe Bryant: The Inspiring Story of One of Basketball's Greatest Shooting Guards (An Unauthorized Biography)
by Clayton GeoffreysKobe Bryant was the face of the Lakers dynasty for the past two decades and for good reason. Few players have commanded a basketball court as much as Kobe in historical performances such as his notable 81-point performance in just under 42 minutes of playing time in 2006 against the Toronto Raptors. While the 2015-2016 NBA season marked the end to Kobe’s storied career, the Black Mamba’s legacy will never be forgotten. Few players can parallel Kobe Bryant in terms of competitive fire and will to win. His polarizing figure defines him and makes even those who do not like him at the very least respect him. Read on to learn about the days of when Kobe played alongside Shaquille O’Neal, Robert Horry, Metta World Peace, Derek Fisher, and Pau Gasol in some of the greatest times of Los Angeles Lakers’ basketball history. Get this basketball book if you're looking for an entertaining afternoon read or an affordable gift for your basketball fan.
Vanishing Streets: Journeys in London
by J. M. TyreeVanishing Streets reveals an American writer's twenty-year love affair with London. Beguiling and idiosyncratic, obsessive and wry, it offers an illustrated travelogue of the peripheries, retracing some of London's most curious locations. As J. M. Tyree wanders deliriously in "the world's most visited city," he rediscovers and reinvents places that have changed drastically since he was a student at Cambridge in the 1990s. Tyree stumbles into the ghosts of Alfred Hitchcock, Graham Greene, and the pioneers of the British Free Cinema Movement. He offers a new way of seeing familiar landmarks through the lens of film history, and reveals strange nooks and tiny oddities in out-of-the-way places, from a lost film by John Ford supposedly shot in Wapping to the beehives hidden in Tower Hamlets Cemetery, an area haunted by a translation error in W. G. Sebald's Austerlitz. This book blends deeply personal writing with a foreigner's observations on a world capital experiencing an unsettling moment of transition. Vanishing Streets builds into an astonishing and innovative multi-layered project combining autobiography, movie madness, and postcard-like annotations on the magical properties of a great city. Tyree argues passionately for London as a cinematic dream city of perpetual fascinations and eccentricities, bridging the past and the present as well as the real and the imaginary.
The Power of Economists within the State
by Johan ChristensenThe spread of market-oriented reforms has been one of the major political and economic trends of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Governments have, to varying degrees, adopted policies that have led to deregulation: the liberalization of trade; the privatization of state entities; and low-rate, broad-base taxes. Yet some countries embraced these policies more than others. Johan Christensen examines one major contributor to this disparity: the entrenchment of U. S. -trained, neoclassical economists in political institutions the world over. While previous studies have highlighted the role of political parties and production regimes, Christensen uses comparative case studies of New Zealand, Ireland, Norway, and Denmark to show how the influence of economists affected the extent to which each nation adopted market-oriented tax policies. He finds that, in countries where economic experts held powerful positions, neoclassical economics broke through with greater force. Drawing on revealing interviews with 80 policy elites, he examines the specific ways in which economists shaped reforms, relying on an activist approach to policymaking and the perceived utility of their science to drive change.
Witnesses of the Unseen: Seven Years in Guantanamo
by Daniel Hartnett NorlandThis searing memoir shares the trauma and triumphs of Lakhdar Boumediene and Mustafa Ait Idir's time inside America's most notorious prison. Lakhdar and Mustafa were living quiet, peaceful lives in Bosnia when, in October 2001, they were arrested and accused of participating in a terrorist plot. After a three-month investigation uncovered no evidence, all charges were dropped and Bosnian courts ordered their freedom. However, under intense U.S. pressure, Bosnian officials turned them over to American soldiers. They were flown blindfolded and shackled to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they were held in outdoor cages for weeks as the now-infamous military prison was built around them. Guantanamo became their home for the next seven years. They endured torture and harassment and force-feedings and beatings, all the while not knowing if they would ever see their families again. They had no opportunity to argue their innocence until 2008, when the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling in their case, Boumediene v. Bush, confirming Guantanamo detainees' constitutional right to challenge their detention in federal court. Weeks later, the George W. Bush–appointed federal judge who heard their case, stunned by the absence of evidence against them, ordered their release. Now living in Europe and rebuilding their lives, Lakhdar and Mustafa are finally free to share a story that every American ought to know.
Bernie Madoff and the Crisis: The Public Trial of Capitalism
by Colleen P. ErenBernie Madoff's arrest could not have come at a more darkly poetic moment. Economic upheaval had plunged America into a horrid recession. Then, on December 11, 2008, Madoff's $65 billion Ponzi scheme came to light. A father turned in by his sons; a son who took his own life; another son dying and estranged from his father; a woman at the center of a storm—Madoff's story was a media magnet, voraciously consumed by a justice-seeking public. Bernie Madoff and the Crisis goes beyond purely investigative accounts to examine how and why Madoff became the epicenter of public fury and titillation. Rooting her argument in critical sociology, Colleen P. Eren analyzes media coverage of this landmark case alongside original interviews with dozens of journalists and editors involved in the reportage, the SEC Director of Public Affairs, and Bernie Madoff himself. Turning the mirror back onto society, Eren locates Madoff within a broader reckoning about free market capitalism. She argues that our ideological and cultural tendencies to attribute blame to individuals—be they regulators, victims, or "monsters" like Madoff—distracts us from more systemic critiques. Bernie Madoff and the Crisis offers fresh insight into the 2008 crisis, whether we have come to terms with it, and what we have yet to gain from the case of the century.
A Vision of Yemen: The Travels of a European Orientalist and His Native Guide, A Translation of Hayyim Habshush's Travelogue
by Alan VerskinIn 1869, Hayyim Habshush, a Yemeni Jew, accompanied the European orientalist Joseph Halévy on his archaeological tour of Yemen. Twenty years later, Habshush wrote A Vision of Yemen, a memoir of their travels, that provides a vivid account of daily life, religion, and politics. More than a simple travelogue, it is a work of trickster-tales, thick anthropological descriptions, and reflections on Jewish–Muslim relations. At its heart lies the fractious and intimate relationship between the Yemeni coppersmith and the "enlightened" European scholar and the collision between the cultures each represents. The book thus offers a powerful indigenous response to European Orientalism. This edition is the first English translation of Habshush's writings from the original Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew and includes an accessible historical introduction to the work. The translation maintains Habshush's gripping style and rich portrayal of the diverse communities and cultures of Yemen, offering a potent mixture of artful storytelling and cultural criticism, suffused with humor and empathy. Habshush writes about the daily lives of men and women, rich and poor, Jewish and Muslim, during a turbulent period of war and both Ottoman and European imperialist encroachment. With this translation, Alan Verskin recovers the lost voice of a man passionately committed to his land and people.
Feast of Ashes: The Life and Art of David Ohannessian
by Sato MoughalianThe compelling life story of Armenian ceramicist David Ohannessian, whose work changed the face of Jerusalem—and a granddaughter's search for his legacy. Along the cobbled streets and golden walls of Jerusalem, brilliantly glazed tiles catch the light and beckon the eye. These colorful wares—known as Armenian ceramics—are iconic features of the Holy City. Silently, these works of ceramic art—art that also graces homes and museums around the world—represent a riveting story of resilience and survival: In the final years of the Ottoman Empire, as hundreds of thousands of Armenians were forcibly marched to their deaths, one man carried the secrets of this age-old art with him into exile toward the Syrian desert. Feast of Ashes tells the story of David Ohannessian, the renowned ceramicist who in 1919 founded the art of Armenian pottery in Jerusalem, where his work and that of his followers is now celebrated as a local treasure. Ohannessian's life encompassed some of the most tumultuous upheavals of the modern Middle East. Born in an isolated Anatolian mountain village, he witnessed the rise of violent nationalism in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire, endured arrest and deportation in the Armenian Genocide, founded a new ceramics tradition in Jerusalem under the British Mandate, and spent his final years, uprooted, in Cairo and Beirut. Ohannessian's life story is revealed by his granddaughter Sato Moughalian, weaving together family narratives with newly unearthed archival findings. Witnessing her personal quest for the man she never met, we come to understand a universal story of migration, survival, and hope.
Defending the Public's Enemy: The Life and Legacy of Ramsey Clark
by Lonnie T. BrownWhat led a former United States Attorney General to become one of the world's most notorious defenders of the despised? Defending the Public's Enemy examines Clark's enigmatic life and career in a quest to answer this perplexing question. The culmination of ten years of research and interviews, Lonnie T. Brown, Jr. explores how Clark evolved from our government's chief lawyer to a strident advocate for some of America's most vilified enemies. Clark's early career was enmeshed with seminally important people and events of the 1960s: Martin Luther King, Jr., Watts Riots, Selma-to-Montgomery March, Black Panthers, Vietnam. As a government insider, he worked to secure the civil rights of black Americans, resisting persistent, racist calls for more law and order. However, upon entering the private sector, Clark seemingly changed, morphing into the government's adversary by aligning with a mystifying array of demonized clients—among them, alleged terrorists, reputed Nazi war criminals, and brutal dictators, including Saddam Hussein. Is Clark a man of character and integrity, committed to ensuring his government's adherence to the ideals of justice and fairness, or is he a professional antagonist, anti-American and reflexively contrarian to the core? The provocative life chronicled in Defending the Public's Enemy is emblematic of the contradictions at the heart of American political history, and society's ambivalent relationship with dissenters and outliers, as well as those who defend them.
Goodbye, My Havana: The Life and Times of a Gringa in Revolutionary Cuba
by Anna VeltfortAn eyewitness account of idealism, self-discovery, and loss under one of the twentieth-century's most repressive political regimes Set against a backdrop of world-changing events during the headiest years of the Cuban Revolution, Goodbye, My Havana follows young Connie Veltfort as her once relatively privileged life among a community of anti-imperialist expatriates turns to progressive disillusionment and heartbreak. The consolidation of Castro's position brings violence, cruelty, and betrayal to Connie's doorstep. And the crackdown that ultimately forces her family and others to flee for their lives includes homosexuals among its targets—Connie's coming-of-age story is one also about the dangers of coming out. Looking back with a mixture of hardheaded clarity and tenderness at her alter ego and a forgotten era, with this gripping graphic memoir Anna Veltfort takes leave of the past even as she brings neglected moments of the Cold War into the present.
The Last Years of Karl Marx: An Intellectual Biography
by Marcello MustoAn innovative reassessment of the last writings and final years of Karl Marx. In the last years of his life, Karl Marx expanded his research in new directions—studying recent anthropological discoveries, analyzing communal forms of ownership in precapitalist societies, supporting the populist movement in Russia, and expressing critiques of colonial oppression in India, Ireland, Algeria, and Egypt. Between 1881 and 1883, he also traveled beyond Europe for the first and only time. Focusing on these last years of Marx's life, this book dispels two key misrepresentations of his work: that Marx ceased to write late in life, and that he was a Eurocentric and economic thinker fixated on class conflict alone. With The Last Years of Karl Marx, Marcello Musto claims a renewed relevance for the late work of Marx, highlighting unpublished or previously neglected writings, many of which remain unavailable in English. Readers are invited to reconsider Marx's critique of European colonialism, his ideas on non-Western societies, and his theories on the possibility of revolution in noncapitalist countries. From Marx's late manuscripts, notebooks, and letters emerge an author markedly different from the one represented by many of his contemporary critics and followers alike. As Marx currently experiences a significant rediscovery, this volume fills a gap in the popularly accepted biography and suggests an innovative reassessment of some of his key concepts.
The Optimist: A Social Biography of Tawfiq Zayyad (Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures)
by Tamir SorekTawfiq Zayyad (1929–94) was a renowned Palestinian poet and a committed communist activist. For four decades, he was a dominant figure in political life in Israel, as a local council member, mayor of Nazareth, and member of the Israeli parliament. Zayyad personified the collective struggle of the Palestinian citizens of Israel, challenging the military government following the creation of the state of Israel, leading the 1976 nationwide strike against land confiscation, and tirelessly protesting Israeli military occupation after 1967. With this book, Tamir Sorek offers the first biography of this charismatic figure. Zayyad's life was one of balance and contradiction—between his revolutionary writings as Palestinian patriotic poet and his pragmatic political work in the Israeli public sphere. He was uncompromising in his protest of injustices against the Palestinian people, but always committed to a universalist vision of Arab-Jewish brotherhood. It was this combination of traits that made Zayyad an exceptional leader—and makes his biography larger than the man himself to offer a compelling story about Palestinians and the state of Israel.
Innocent Witnesses: Childhood Memories of World War II
by Marilyn YalomIn a book that will touch hearts and minds, acclaimed cultural historian Marilyn Yalom presents firsthand accounts of six witnesses to war, each offering lasting memories of how childhood trauma transforms lives. The violence of war leaves indelible marks, and memories last a lifetime for those who experienced this trauma as children. Marilyn Yalom experienced World War II from afar, safely protected in her home in Washington, DC. But over the course of her life, she came to be close friends with many less lucky, who grew up under bombardment across Europe—in France, Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, England, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Holland. With Innocent Witnesses, Yalom collects the stories from these accomplished luminaries and brings us voices of a vanishing generation, the last to remember World War II. Memory is notoriously fickle: it forgets most of the past, holds on to bits and pieces, and colors the truth according to unconscious wishes. But in the circle of safety Marilyn Yalom created for her friends, childhood memories return in all their startling vividness. This powerful collage of testimonies offers us a greater understanding of what it is to be human, not just then but also today. With this book, her final and most personal work of cultural history, Yalom considers the lasting impact of such young experiences—and asks whether we will now force a new generation of children to spend their lives reconciling with such memories.
Return to Ruin: Iraqi Narratives of Exile and Nostalgia
by Zainab SalehWith the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Iraqis abroad, hoping to return one day to a better Iraq, became uncertain exiles. Return to Ruin tells the human story of this exile in the context of decades of U.S. imperial interests in Iraq—from the U.S. backing of the 1963 Ba'th coup and support of Saddam Hussein's regime in the 1980s, to the 1991 Gulf War and 2003 invasion and occupation. Zainab Saleh shares the experiences of Iraqis she met over fourteen years of fieldwork in Iraqi London—offering stories from an aging communist nostalgic for the streets she marched since childhood, a devout Shi'i dreaming of holy cities and family graves, and newly uprooted immigrants with fresh memories of loss, as well as her own. Focusing on debates among Iraqi exiles about what it means to be an Iraqi after years of displacement, Saleh weaves a narrative that draws attention to a once-dominant, vibrant Iraqi cultural landscape and social and political shifts among the diaspora after decades of authoritarianism, war, and occupation in Iraq. Through it all, this book illuminates how Iraqis continue to fashion a sense of belonging and imagine a future, built on the shards of these shattered memories.
The Last Nahdawi: Taha Hussein and Institution Building in Egypt
by Hussam R. AhmedTaha Hussein (1889–1973) is one of Egypt's most iconic figures. A graduate of al-Azhar, Egypt's oldest university, a civil servant and public intellectual, and ultimately Egyptian Minister of Public Instruction, Hussein was central to key social and political developments in Egypt during the parliamentary period between 1922 and 1952. Influential in the introduction of a new secular university and a burgeoning press in Egypt—and prominent in public debates over nationalism and the roles of religion, women, and education in making a modern independent nation—Hussein remains a subject of continued admiration and controversy to this day. The Last Nahdawi offers the first biography of Hussein in which his intellectual outlook and public career are taken equally seriously. Examining Hussein's actions against the backdrop of his complex relationship with the Egyptian state, the religious establishment, and the French government, Hussam R. Ahmed reveals modern Egypt's cultural influence in the Arab and Islamic world within the various structural changes and political processes of the parliamentary period. Ahmed offers both a history of modern state formation, revealing how the Egyptian state came to hold such a strong grip over culture and education—and a compelling examination of the life of the country's most renowned intellectual.
Paletó and Me: Memories of My Indigenous Father
by Aparecida VilaçaWinner of the prestigious Casa de las Américas Prize, this work spins a heartfelt story of an improbable relationship between an anthropologist and her charismatic Indigenous father. When Aparecida Vilaça first traveled down the remote Negro River in Amazonia, she expected to come back with notebooks and tapes full of observations about the Indigenous Wari' people—but not with a new father. In Paletó and Me, Vilaça shares her life with her adoptive Wari' family, and the profound personal transformations involved in becoming kin. Paletó—unfailingly charming, always prepared with a joke—shines with life in Vilaça's account of their unusual father-daughter relationship. Paletó was many things: he was a survivor, who lived through the arrival of violent invaders and diseases. He was a leader, who taught through laughter and care, spoke softly, yet was always ready to jump into the unknown. He could shift seamlessly between the roles of the observer and the observed, and in his visits to Rio de Janeiro, deconstructs urban social conventions with ease and wit. Begun the day after Paletó's death at the age of 85, Paletó and Me is a celebration of life, weaving together the author's own memories of learning the lifeways of Indigenous Amazonia with her father's testimony to Wari' persistence in the face of colonization. Speaking from the heart as both anthropologist and daughter, Vilaça offers an intimate look at Indigenous lives in Brazil over nearly a century.
Years of Glory: Nelly Benatar and the Pursuit of Justice in Wartime North Africa (Worlding the Middle East)
by Susan Gilson MillerThe compelling true story of Nelly Benatar—a hero of the anti-Fascist North African resistance and humanitarian who changed the course of history for the "last million" escaping the Second World War. When France fell to Hitler's armies in June 1940, a flood of refugees fleeing Nazi terror quickly overwhelmed Europe's borders and spilled across the Mediterranean to North Africa, touching off a humanitarian crisis of dizzying proportions. Nelly Benatar, a highly regarded Casablancan Jewish lawyer, quickly claimed a role of rescuer and almost single-handedly organized a sweeping program of wartime refugee relief. But for all her remarkable achievements, Benatar's story has never been told. With this book, Susan Gilson Miller introduces readers to a woman who fought injustice as an anti-Fascist resistant, advocate for refugee rights, liberator of Vichy-run forced labor camps, and legal counselor to hundreds of Holocaust survivors. Miller crafts a gripping biography that spins a tale like a Hollywood thriller, yet finds its truth in archives gathered across Europe, North Africa, Israel, and the United States and from Benatar's personal collection of eighteen thousand documents now housed in the US Holocaust Museum. Years of Glory offers a rich narrative and a deeper understanding of the complex currents that shaped Jewish, North African, and world history over the course of the Second World War. The traumas of genocide, the struggle for anti-colonial liberation, and the eventual Jewish exodus from Arab lands all take on new meaning when reflected through the interstices of Benatar's life. A courageous woman with a deep moral conscience and an iron will, Nelly Benatar helped to lay the groundwork for crucial postwar efforts to build a better world over Europe's ashes.
Unknown Past: Layla Murad, the Jewish-Muslim Star of Egypt
by Hanan HammadA biography of the "Cinderella" of Egyptian cinema—the veneration and rumors that surrounded an unparalleled career, and the gendered questions that unsettled Egyptian society. Layla Murad (1918-1995) was once the highest-paid star in Egypt, and her movies were among the top-grossing in the box office. She starred in 28 films, nearly all now classics in Arab musical cinema. In 1955 she was forced to stop acting—and struggled for decades for a comeback. Today, even decades after her death, public interest in her life continues, and new generations of Egyptians still love her work. Unknown Past recounts Murad's extraordinary life—and the rapid political and sociocultural changes she witnessed. Hanan Hammad writes a story centered on Layla Murad's persona and legacy, and broadly framed around a gendered history of twentieth-century Egypt. Murad was a Jew who converted to Islam in the shadow of the first Arab-Israeli war. Her career blossomed under the Egyptian monarchy and later gave a singing voice to the Free Officers and the 1952 Revolution. The definitive end of her cinematic career came under Nasser on the eve of the 1956 Suez War. Egyptians have long told their national story through interpretations of Murad's life, intertwining the individual and Egyptian state and society to better understand Egyptian identity. As Unknown Past recounts, there's no life better than Murad's to reflect the tumultuous changes experienced over the dramatic decades of the mid-twentieth century.
Strike Patterns: Notes from Postwar Laos
by Leah ZaniA strike pattern is a signature of violence carved into the land—bomb craters or fragments of explosives left behind, forgotten. In Strike Patterns, poet and anthropologist Leah Zani journeys to a Lao river community where people live alongside such relics of a secret war. With sensitive and arresting prose, Zani reveals the layered realities that settle atop one another in Laos—from its French colonial history to today's authoritarian state—all blown open by the war. This excavation of postwar life's balance between the mundane, the terrifying, and the extraordinary propels Zani to confront her own explosive past. From 1964 to 1973, the United States carried out a covert air war against Laos. Frequently overshadowed by the war with Vietnam, the Secret War was the longest and most intense air war in history. As Zani uncovers this hidden legacy, she finds herself immersed in the lives of her hosts: Chantha, a daughter of war refugees who grapples with her place in a future Laos of imagined prosperity; Channarong, a bomb technician whose Thai origins allow him to stand apart from the battlefields he clears; and Bounmi, a young man who has inherited his bomb expertise from his father but now struggles to imagine a similar future for his unborn son. Wandering through their lives are the restless ghosts of kin and strangers. Today, much of Laos remains contaminated with dangerous leftover explosives. Despite its obscurity, the Secret War has become a shadow model for modern counterinsurgency. Investigating these shadows of war, Zani spends time with silk weavers and rice farmers, bomb clearance crews and black market war scrap traders, ritual healers and survivors of explosions. Combining her fieldnotes with poetry, fiction, and memoir she reflects on the power of building new lives in the ruins.