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There Was Nothing There: Williamsburg, The Gentrification of a Brooklyn Neighborhood
by Sara MartucciExplores the daily, lived effects of gentrification for neighborhood residentsWilliamsburg, Brooklyn, a prominent neighborhood in New York City, has undergone significant transformations through cycles of divestment and gentrification. In 2005, the city’s decision to rezone the Williamsburg waterfront for high-rise housing led to a profound alteration of the physical, cultural, and social landscape. The result was the rapid influx of thousands of new residents, many of them wealthy, giving rise to luxury buildings, upscale dining, and high-end retail stores alongside new norms and expectations for the neighborhood. These new arrivals coexist with earlier gentrifiers as well as working-class Latinx and white ethnic populations, creating a complex and layered community.In There Was Nothing There, Sara Martucci draws on four decades of residents’ memories and experiences, providing insights into the tensions, contradictions, and inequalities brought about by gentrification. Martucci focuses on the individual level, exploring how residents form connections to their neighborhoods and how these attachments shape their daily experiences of public spaces, local consumption, and evaluations of safety. As established residents, bohemians, and newcomers vie for ownership and belonging, their perceptions give rise to conflicting narratives that define the essence of the neighborhood.While the book’s primary focus is Williamsburg, it serves as a cautionary tale about the broader impact of state-led gentrification, extending far beyond Brooklyn. The text underscores the potential consequences of such transformations for the future of cities, urging readers to consider the implications of cultural displacement, homogenization, and increased surveillance as gentrification permeates urban landscapes.
There Was Still Love
by Favel Parrett'A beautifully crafted book from a wonderful storyteller. It sings with humanity.' Sarah WinmanAUSTRALIAN INDIE BOOK AWARD WINNER 2020 BOOK OF THE YEAR & FICTION BOOK OF THE YEARSHORTLISTED FOR THE STELLA PRIZE 2020PRAGUE, 1938: Eva flies down the street. A man steps out suddenly.Eva runs into him, hits the pavement hard. His hat is in the gutter.His anger slaps Eva, but his hate will change everything,as war forces so many lives into small brown suitcases.PRAGUE, 1980: No one sees Ludek. A young boy can slip right underthe heavy blanket that covers this city - the fear cannot touch him.Ludek is free. And he sees everything. The world can do what it likes.The world can go to hell for all he cares because Babi is waitingfor him in the warm flat. She is his whole world.MELBOURNE, 1980: Mala Liska's grandma holds her hand as they climbthe stairs to their third floor flat. Inside, the smell of warm pipetobacco and homemade cakes. Here, Mana and Bill have made alife for themselves and their granddaughter. A life imbued withthe spirit of Prague and the loved ones left behind.Because there is still love. No matter what.
There Was Still Love
by Favel Parrett'A beautifully crafted book from a wonderful storyteller. It sings with humanity.' Sarah WinmanAUSTRALIAN INDIE BOOK AWARD WINNER 2020 BOOK OF THE YEAR & FICTION BOOK OF THE YEARSHORTLISTED FOR THE STELLA PRIZE 2020PRAGUE, 1938: Eva flies down the street. A man steps out suddenly.Eva runs into him, hits the pavement hard. His hat is in the gutter.His anger slaps Eva, but his hate will change everything,as war forces so many lives into small brown suitcases.PRAGUE, 1980: No one sees Ludek. A young boy can slip right underthe heavy blanket that covers this city - the fear cannot touch him.Ludek is free. And he sees everything. The world can do what it likes.The world can go to hell for all he cares because Babi is waitingfor him in the warm flat. She is his whole world.MELBOURNE, 1980: Mala Liska's grandma holds her hand as they climbthe stairs to their third floor flat. Inside, the smell of warm pipetobacco and homemade cakes. Here, Mana and Bill have made alife for themselves and their granddaughter. A life imbued withthe spirit of Prague and the loved ones left behind.Because there is still love. No matter what.
There Were Giants Upon the Earth: The Evidence of Alien DNA
by Zecharia SitchinThe crowning work of the best-selling Earth Chronicles series • Reveals the existence of physical evidence of alien presence on Earth in the distant past • Identifies and describes the demigods, such as Gilgamesh, descended from these visitors • Outlines the tests of this physical evidence of alien presence that could unlock the secrets of health, longevity, life, and death In whose genetic image were we made? From his first book The 12th Planet on, Zecharia Sitchin has asserted that the Bible’s Elohim who said “Let us fashion The Adam in our image and after our likeness” were the gods of Sumer and Babylon--the Anunnaki who had come to Earth from their planet Nibiru. The Adam, he wrote, was genetically engineered by adding Anunnaki genes to those of an existing hominid, some 300,000 years ago. Then, according to the Bible, intermarriage took place: “There were giants upon the Earth” who took Adam’s female offspring as wives, giving birth to “heroes of renown.” With meticulous detail, Sitchin shows that these were the demigods of Sumerian and Babylonian lore, such as the famed Mesopotamian king Gilgamesh as well as the hero of the Deluge, the Babylonian Utnapishtim. Are we then, all of us, descendants of demigods? In this crowning oeuvre, Zecharia Sitchin proceeds step-by-step through a mass of ancient writings and artifacts, leading the reader to the stunning Royal Tombs of Ur. He reveals a DNA source that could prove the biblical and Sumerian tales true, providing conclusive physical evidence for past alien presence on Earth and an unprecedented scientific opportunity to track down the “Missing Link” in humankind’s evolution, unlocking the secrets of longevity and even the ultimate mystery of life and death.
There When He Needs You: How to Be an Available, Involved, and Emotionally Connected Father to Your Son
by Brooke Lea Foster Neil BernsteinMen want to be better fathers, and today they're trying harder than ever. They jog behind strollers, leave work early for parent-teacher conferences, and roughhouse with their kids before they've had a chance to change out of their suits. But many men aren't building the relationships with their sons that they'd hoped for. And sons are finding it hard to confide in fathers who must devote so much of their time to building careers that both keep them from their families and keep their families comfortable. Many fathers admit that they don't have a clue what's going on in their sons' lives, from ball game schedules to online communities to fears and anxieties about school, friends, and relationships. Fathers often walk around burdened with guilt, worried they're just not able to do the right thing, even though they're trying to be equal partners in parenting with their wives. There When He Needs You is the first book to tell the truth about the challenges that fathers of sons face today -- including the intergenerational legacies of self-doubt that they anxiously carry from themselves having had distant, unavailable fathers. A self-treatment program as well as a psychological X-ray of today's father, There When He Needs You shows you how to create and strengthen a real, meaningful bond with your son. Through real-life stories of real-life dads who have lost and found their way, you as a father will learn to reorder your priorities, express yourself more openly, connect with your loved ones, and become the role model that your son needs. Wives will learn how to gently help their husbands do this -- no nagging, threatening, or criticizing -- while becoming their husband's best friend, cheerleader, and coach. Turning the father-son dynamic inside out, There When He Needs You helps fathers, sons, and mothers to understand their roles in the family and create relationships that fuel closeness and trust. There When He Needs You will open your eyes, tickle your funny bone, and touch your heart. Ultimately, you'll understand what it really means to be a father to your son and discover new ways to be there for him.
There Will Be No Miracles Here: A Memoir
by Casey GeraldThe testament of a boy and a generation who came of age as the world came apart--a generation searching for a new way to live. <p><p> Casey Gerald comes to our fractured times as a uniquely visionary witness whose life has spanned seemingly unbridgeable divides. His story begins at the end of the world: Dallas, New Year's Eve 1999, when he gathers with the congregation of his grandfather's black evangelical church to see which of them will be carried off. His beautiful, fragile mother disappears frequently and mysteriously; for a brief idyll, he and his sister live like Boxcar Children on her disability checks. <p> When Casey--following in the footsteps of his father, a gridiron legend who literally broke his back for the team--is recruited to play football at Yale, he enters a world he's never dreamed of, the anteroom to secret societies and success on Wall Street, in Washington, and beyond. But even as he attains the inner sanctums of power, Casey sees how the world crushes those who live at its margins. He sees how the elite perpetuate the salvation stories that keep others from rising. And he sees, most painfully, how his own ascension is part of the scheme. <p> There Will Be No Miracles Here has the arc of a classic rags-to-riches tale, but it stands the American Dream narrative on its head. If to live as we are is destroying us, it asks, what would it mean to truly live? Intense, incantatory, shot through with sly humor and quiet fury, There Will Be No Miracles Here inspires us to question--even shatter--and reimagine our most cherished myths.
There You Have It: The Life, Legacy, and Legend of Howard Cosell
by John BloomThis is the first full-length biography of the lawyer-turned-sports journalist whose brash style and penchant for social commentary changed the way American sporting events are reported. Perhaps best known for his close relationship with the world champion boxer Muhammad Ali, Howard Cosell became a celebrity in his own right during the 1960s and 1970s-the bombastic, controversial, instantly recognizable sportscaster everyone "loved to hate." Raised in Brooklyn in a middle-class Jewish family, Cosell carried with him a deeply ingrained sense of social justice. Yet early on he abandoned plans for a legal career to become a pioneer in sports broadcasting, first in radio and then in television. The first white TV reporter to address the former Cassius Clay by his chosen Muslim name, Cosell was also the first sportscaster to conduct locker room interviews with professional athletes, using a tape recorder purchased with his own money. At the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, he not only defended the fisted "Black Power" salutes of American track medalists John Carlos and Tommie Smith, but he publicly excoriated Olympic Committee chairman Avery Brundage for "hypocritical," racist policies. He was also instrumental in launching ABC's Monday Night Football, a prime-time sports program that evolved into an American cultural institution. Yet while Cosell took courageous stands on behalf of civil rights and other causes, he could be remarkably blind to the inconsistencies in his own life. In this way, John Bloom argues, he embodied contradictions that still resonate widely in American society today.
There'll Be Peace When You Are Done: Actors and Fans Celebrate the Legacy of Supernatural
by Lynn S. ZubernisFifteen years. Two brothers. Angels and demons. A story like no other. And one of the most passionate fan bases of all time. That's Supernatural. There'll Be Peace When You Are Done: Actors and Fans Celebrate the Legacy of Supernatural is an emotional look back at the beloved television show Supernatural as it wraps up its final season after fifteen unprecedented years on air. With heartfelt chapters written by both the series' actors and its fans—plus full-color photos and fan illustrations—There'll Be Peace When You Are Done traces Supernatural's evolution, the memorable characters created by its writers and brought to life by its talented actors, and the many ways in which the show has inspired and changed the lives of both its viewers and cast. Both a celebration of Supernatural and a way of remembering what made it so special, this book is a permanent reminder of the legacy the show leaves behind and a reminder to the SPN Family to, like the series' unofficial theme song says, "carry on." Featuring chapters from Jared Padalecki ("Sam Winchester") and Jensen Ackles ("Dean Winchester"), which include some of the most heartfelt and emotional things they've previously said about Supernatural that they want fans to remember—plus new reflections about Sam and Dean's legacy, There'll Be Peace When You Are Done also includes original contributions from: • Richard Speight, Jr. ("Gabriel") • Chad Lindberg ("Ash") • Julie McNiven ("Anna Milton") • Tahmoh Penikett ("Gadreel") • Shoshannah Stern ("Eileen Leahy") • Rick Worthy ("Alpha Vamp") • David Haydn-Jones ("Arthur Ketch") • Lauren Tom ("Linda Tran") • And many more, including a special message from Misha Collins ("Castiel") Edited by Lynn S. Zubernis, a clinical psychologist, professor, and passionate Supernatural fangirl, There'll Be Peace When You Are Done is the ultimate send-off for this iconic show that has touched and changed the lives of so many fans across all walks of life.
There's a Disco Ball Between Us: A Theory of Black Gay Life
by Jafari S. AllenIn There’s a Disco Ball Between Us, Jafari S. Allen offers a sweeping and lively ethnographic and intellectual history of what he calls “Black gay habits of mind.” In conversational and lyrical language, Allen locates this sensibility as it emerged from radical Black lesbian activism and writing during the long 1980s. He traverses multiple temporalities and locations, drawing on research and fieldwork conducted across the globe, from Nairobi, London, and Paris to Toronto, Miami, and Trinidad and Tobago. In these locations and archives, Allen traces the genealogies of Black gay politics and cultures in the visual art, poetry, film, Black feminist theory, historiography, and activism of thinkers and artists such as Audre Lorde, Marsha P. Johnson, Essex Hemphill, Colin Robinson, Marlon Riggs, Pat Parker, and Joseph Beam. Throughout, Allen renarrates Black queer history while cultivating a Black gay method of thinking and writing. In so doing, he speaks to the urgent contemporary struggles for social justice while calling on Black studies to pursue scholarship, art, and policy derived from the lived experience and fantasies of Black people throughout the world.
There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension
by Hanif AbdurraqibA poignant, personal reflection on basketball, life, and home—from the author of the National Book Award finalist A Little Devil in America. <p><P> Growing up in Columbus, Ohio, in the 1990s, Hanif Abdurraqib witnessed a golden era of basketball, one in which legends like LeBron James were forged and countless others weren’t. His lifelong love of the game leads Abdurraqib into a lyrical, historical, and emotionally rich exploration of what it means to make it, who we think deserves success, the tension between excellence and expectation, and the very notion of role models, all of which he expertly weaves together with intimate, personal storytelling. “Here is where I would like to tell you about the form on my father’s jump shot,” Abdurraqib writes. “The truth, though, is that I saw my father shoot a basketball only one time.” <p><P> There’s Always This Year is a triumph, brimming with joy, pain, solidarity, comfort, outrage, and hope. No matter the subject of his keen focus—whether it’s basketball, or music, or performance—Hanif Abdurraqib’s exquisite writing is always poetry, always profound, and always a clarion call to radically reimagine how we think about our culture, our country, and ourselves. <p> <b>New York Times Bestseller</b>
There's Always Work at the Post Office: African American Postal Workers and the Fight for Jobs, Justice, and Equality
by Philip F. RubioThis book brings to life the important but neglected story of African American postal workers and the critical role they played in the U. S. labor and black freedom movements. Historian Philip Rubio, a former postal worker, integrates civil rights, labor, and left movement histories that too often are written as if they happened separately. Centered on New York City and Washington, D. C. , the book chronicles a struggle of national significance through its examination of the post office, a workplace with facilities and unions serving every city and town in the United States. Black postal workers--often college-educated military veterans--fought their way into postal positions and unions and became a critical force for social change. They combined black labor protest and civic traditions to construct a civil rights unionism at the post office. They were a major factor in the 1970 nationwide postal wildcat strike, which resulted in full collective bargaining rights for the major postal unions under the newly established U. S. Postal Service in 1971. In making the fight for equality primary, African American postal workers were influential in shaping today's post office and postal unions.
There's No Place Like Home: Place And Care In An Ageing Society (Geographies of Health Series)
by Christine MilliganAgainst a background of debate around global ageing and what this means in terms of the future care need of older people, this book addresses key concerns about the nature and site of care and care-giving. Following a critical review of research into who cares, where and how, it uses geographical perspectives to present a comprehensive analysis of how the intersection of informal care-giving within domestic, community and residential care homes can create complex landscapes and organizational spatialities of care. Drawing on contemporary case studies largely, but not exclusively from the UK, the book reviews and develops a theoretical basis for a geographical analysis of the issue of care. By relating these theoretical concepts to empirical data and case studies it illustrates how formal and informal care-giver responses to the changing landscape of care can act to facilitate or constrain the development of inclusionary models of care.
There's Nothing Micro about a Billion Women: Making Finance Work for Women
by Mary Ellen IskenderianWhy it takes more than microloans to empower women and promote sustainable, inclusive economic growth.Nearly one billion women have been completely excluded from the formal financial system. Without even a bank account in their own names, they lack the basic services that most of us take for granted—secure ways to save money, pay bills, and get credit. Exclusion from the formal financial system means they are economic outsiders, unable to benefit from, or contribute to, economic growth. Microfinance has been hailed as an economic lifeline for women in developing countries—but, as Mary Ellen Iskenderian shows in this book, it takes more than microloans to empower women and promote sustainable, inclusive economic growth. Iskenderian, who leads a nonprofit that works to give women access to the financial system, argues that the banking industry should view these one billion &“unbanked&” women not as charity cases but as a business opportunity: a lucrative new market of small business owners, heads of households, and purchasers of financial products and services. Iskenderian shows how financial inclusion can be transformative for the lives of women in developing countries, describing, among other things, the informal moneylenders and savings clubs that women have relied on, the need for both financial and digital literacy (and access) as mobile phones become a means of banking, and the importance of women&’s property rights. She goes on to make the business case for financial inclusion, exploring the ways that financial institutions are adapting to help women build wealth, access capital, and manage risks. Banks can do the right thing—and make money while doing so—and all of us can benefit.
Theresienstadt: Historiography and Sociological Analyses
by Hans-Georg Soeffner Lara Pellner Marija StanisavljevićIn the ghetto, transit and concentration camp Theresienstadt, film recordings were made with the forced participation of the deportees and became known under the title "Theresienstadt - A Documentary from the Jewish Settlement Area". As a particularly perfidious part of National Socialist propaganda, these recordings continue to have an impact to the present day: Deniers of the National Socialist genocide still refer to this film today. In this anthology, the special position of Theresienstadt is examined on various levels. In addition to the analysis of eyewitness interviews, sociological, philosophical, and historiographical reflections on the circumstances, conditions, and peculiarities of Terezin are included.
Theresienstadt – Filmfragmente und Zeitzeugenberichte: Historiographie und soziologische Analysen (Wissen, Kommunikation und Gesellschaft)
by Lara Pellner Hans-Georg Soeffner Marija StanisavljevicIm Ghetto, Durchgangs- und Konzentrationslager Theresienstadt sind, unter erzwungener Beteiligung der Deportierten, filmische Aufzeichnungen entstanden und unter dem Titel „Theresienstadt – Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet“ bekannt geworden. Als besonders perfider Teil nationalsozialistischer Propaganda wirken diese Aufnahmen bis in die Gegenwart nach: Leugner des nationalsozialistischen Genozids verweisen bis heute auf diesen Film. Im Rahmen des Sammelbandes wird die Sonderstellung Theresienstadts auf unterschiedlichen Ebenen beleuchtet. Neben der Analyse von Zeitzeugeninterviews finden sich soziologische, philosophische und geschichtswissenschaftliche Betrachtungen der Umstände, Zustände und Besonderheiten Theresienstadts.
Thermal Remote Sensing of Active Volcanoes
by Andrew HarrisEncapsulating over one hundred years of research developments, this book is a comprehensive manual for measurements of Earth surface temperatures and heat fluxes, enabling better detection and measurement of volcanic activity. With a particular focus on volcanic hot spots, the book explores methodologies and principles used with satellite-, radiometer- and thermal-camera data. It presents traditional applications using satellite and ground based sensors as well as modern applications that have evolved for use with hand-held thermal cameras and is fully illustrated with case studies, databases and worked examples. Chapter topics include techniques for thermal mixture modelling and heat flux derivation, and methods for data collection, mapping and time-series generation. Appendices and online supplements present additional specific notes on areas of sensor application and data processing, supported by an extensive reference list. This book is an invaluable resource for academic researchers and graduate students in thermal remote sensing, volcanology, geophysics and planetary studies.
A Thesaurus of African Languages: A Classified and Annotated Inventory of the Spoken Languages of Africa With an Appendix on Their Written Representation (Linguistic Surveys of Africa #1)
by Michael Mann David DalbyOriginally published in 1987, this thesaurus is concerned with the spoken languages of Africa. Languages are grouped into a relatively large number of sets and subsets within which the relationship of languages to one another is locally apparent and uncontroversial. The volume presents the languages in classified order with notes on each language, their variant names and immediate classification, and reference to the sources consulted. One section offers an exhaustive list of the languages spoken as home languages by local communities in each state, together with details of languages widely used for inter-group communication, given official recognition, or used in education or the media. There are brief phonological analyses of a broad sample of some 20 African languages and a comprehensive bibliography and language index to the whole work
These Are Not Gentle People: A tense and pacy true-crime thriller
by Andrew HardingNOW SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION"Utterly gripping, timely and shocking" PHILIPPE SANDS"Compelling and disturbing . . . quietly devastating" DAMON GALGUT"This is a book of profound importance . . . A masterpiece" ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH"A vintage crime story . . . an extraordinary tale . . . It is written as a drama, part thriller, part tragedy" ALEC RUSSELL, Financial Times"A smartly paced true-crime thriller with a vivid cast of characters . . . as tense as it is disturbing" JOHN CARLIN, author of Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a NationTwo dead men. Forty suspects. The trial that broke a small South African town "Look what the fucking dogs did to them, someone muttered. No-one mentioned the rope, or the monkey-wrench, or the gun, or the knife, or the stick, or the whip, or the blood-stained boots. In fact, no-one said much at all. It seemed simpler that way. There was no sense in pointing fingers.'"At dusk, on a warm evening in 2016, a group of forty men gathered in the corner of a dusty field on a farm outside Parys in the Free State. Some were in fury. Others treated the whole thing as a joke - a game. The events of the next two hours would come to haunt them all. They would rip families apart, prompt suicide attempts, breakdowns, divorce, bankruptcy, threats of violent revenge and acts of unforgivable treachery. These Are Not Gentle People is the story of that night, and of what happened next. It's a courtroom drama, a profound exploration of collective guilt and individual justice, and a fast-paced literary thriller. Award-winning foreign correspondent and author Andrew Harding traces the impact of one moment of collective barbarism on a fragile community - exploding lies, cover-ups, political meddling and betrayals, and revealing the inner lives of those involved with extraordinary clarity. The book is also a mesmerising examination of a small town trying to cope with a trauma that threatens to tear it in two - as such, it is as much a journey into the heart of modern South Africa as it is a gripping tale of crime, punishment and redemption. When a whole community is on trial, who pays the price?
These Are Not Gentle People: A tense and pacy true-crime thriller
by Andrew HardingNOW SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION"Utterly gripping, timely and shocking" PHILIPPE SANDS"Compelling and disturbing . . . quietly devastating" DAMON GALGUT"This is a book of profound importance . . . A masterpiece" ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH "A vintage crime story . . . an extraordinary tale . . . It is written as a drama, part thriller, part tragedy" ALEC RUSSELL, Financial Times"A smartly paced true-crime thriller with a vivid cast of characters . . . as tense as it is disturbing" JOHN CARLIN, author of Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a NationTwo dead men. Forty suspects. The trial that broke a small South African town"Look what the fucking dogs did to them, someone muttered. No-one mentioned the rope, or the monkey-wrench, or the gun, or the knife, or the stick, or the whip, or the blood-stained boots. In fact, no-one said much at all. It seemed simpler that way. There was no sense in pointing fingers.'"At dusk, on a warm evening in 2016, a group of forty men gathered in the corner of a dusty field on a farm outside Parys in the Free State. Some were in fury. Others treated the whole thing as a joke - a game. The events of the next two hours would come to haunt them all. They would rip families apart, prompt suicide attempts, breakdowns, divorce, bankruptcy, threats of violent revenge and acts of unforgivable treachery.These Are Not Gentle People is the story of that night, and of what happened next. It's a courtroom drama, a profound exploration of collective guilt and individual justice, and a fast-paced literary thriller. Award-winning foreign correspondent and author Andrew Harding traces the impact of one moment of collective barbarism on a fragile community - exploding lies, cover-ups, political meddling and betrayals, and revealing the inner lives of those involved with extraordinary clarity. The book is also a mesmerising examination of a small town trying to cope with a trauma that threatens to tear it in two - as such, it is as much a journey into the heart of modern South Africa as it is a gripping tale of crime, punishment and redemption. When a whole community is on trial, who pays the price?
These Are Not Gentle People: A tense and pacy true-crime thriller
by Andrew HardingNOW SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION"Utterly gripping, timely and shocking" PHILIPPE SANDS"Compelling and disturbing . . . quietly devastating" DAMON GALGUT"This is a book of profound importance . . . A masterpiece" ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH"A vintage crime story . . . an extraordinary tale . . . It is written as a drama, part thriller, part tragedy" ALEC RUSSELL, Financial Times"A smartly paced true-crime thriller with a vivid cast of characters . . . as tense as it is disturbing" JOHN CARLIN, author of Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a NationTwo dead men. Forty suspects. The trial that broke a small South African town"Look what the fucking dogs did to them, someone muttered. No-one mentioned the rope, or the monkey-wrench, or the gun, or the knife, or the stick, or the whip, or the blood-stained boots. In fact, no-one said much at all. It seemed simpler that way. There was no sense in pointing fingers.'"At dusk, on a warm evening in 2016, a group of forty men gathered in the corner of a dusty field on a farm outside Parys in the Free State. Some were in fury. Others treated the whole thing as a joke - a game. The events of the next two hours would come to haunt them all. They would rip families apart, prompt suicide attempts, breakdowns, divorce, bankruptcy, threats of violent revenge and acts of unforgivable treachery. These Are Not Gentle People is the story of that night, and of what happened next. It's a courtroom drama, a profound exploration of collective guilt and individual justice, and a fast-paced literary thriller. Award-winning foreign correspondent and author Andrew Harding traces the impact of one moment of collective barbarism on a fragile community - exploding lies, cover-ups, political meddling and betrayals, and revealing the inner lives of those involved with extraordinary clarity. The book is also a mesmerising examination of a small town trying to cope with a trauma that threatens to tear it in two - as such, it is as much a journey into the heart of modern South Africa as it is a gripping tale of crime, punishment and redemption. When a whole community is on trial, who pays the price?(P) 2019 Quercus Editions Limited
These Are the Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs—and Wrecks—America
by Gretchen Morgenson Joshua RosnerA Wall Street Journal Bestseller Pulitzer Prize–winning and New York Times bestselling financial journalist Gretchen Morgenson and financial policy analyst Joshua Rosner investigate the insidious world of private equity in this &“masterpiece of investigative journalism&” (Christopher Leonard, bestselling author of Kochland)—revealing how it puts our entire economy and us at risk.Much has been written about the widening gulf between rich and poor and how our style of capitalism has failed to provide a living wage for so many Americans. But nothing has fully detailed the outsized role a small cohort of elite financiers has played in this inequality. Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author Gretchen Morgenson, with coauthor Joshua Rosner, unmask the small group of celebrated Wall Street financiers, and their government enablers, who use excessive debt and dubious practices to undermine our nation&’s economy for their own enrichment: private equity. These Are the Plunderers traces the thirty-year history of corporate takeovers in America and private equity&’s increasing dominance. Morgenson and Rosner investigate some of the biggest names in private equity, exposing how they buy companies, load them with debt, and then bleed them of assets and profits. All while prosecutors and regulators stand idly by. The authors show how companies absorbed by private equity have worse outcomes for everyone but the financiers: employees are more likely to lose their jobs or their benefits; companies are more likely to go bankrupt; patients are more likely to have higher healthcare costs; residents of nursing homes are more likely to die faster; towns struggle when private equity buys their main businesses, crippling the local economy; and school teachers, firefighters, medical technicians, and other public workers are more likely to have lower returns on their pensions because of the fees private equity extracts from their investments. In other words: we are all worse off because of private equity. These Are the Plunderers is a &“meticulous and devastating takedown of a powerful force in Western capitalism&” (Brad Stone, bestselling author of Amazon Unbound) that exposes the greed and pillaging in private equity, revealing the many ways these billionaires have bled the economy, and, in turn, us.
These Days of Large Things
by Clarke Michael TavelThe United States at the turn of the twentieth century cultivated a passion for big. It witnessed the emergence of large-scale corporate capitalism; the beginnings of American imperialism on a global stage; record-level immigration; a rapid expansion of cities; and colossal events and structures like world's fairs, amusement parks, department stores, and skyscrapers. Size began to play a key role in American identity. During this period, bigness signaled American progress. These Days of Large Thingsexplores the centrality of size to American culture and national identity and the preoccupation with physical stature that pervaded American thought. Clarke examines the role that body size played in racial theory and the ways in which economic changes in the nation generated conflicting attitudes toward growth and bigness. Finally, Clarke investigates the relationship between stature and gender. These Days of Large Thingsbrings together a remarkable range of cultural material including scientific studies, photographs, novels, cartoons, architecture, and film. As a general cultural and intellectual history of the period, this work will be of interest to students and scholars in American studies, U. S. history, American literature, and gender studies. Michael Tavel Clarke is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Calgary. Cover photograph: "New York from Its Pinnacles," Alvin Langdon Coburn (1912). Courtesy of the George Eastman House. "A fascinating study of the American preoccupation with physical size, this book charts new paths in the history of science, culture, and the body. A must-read for anyone puzzling over why Americans today love hulking SUVs, Mcmansions, and outsized masculine bodies. " ---Lois Banner, University of Southern California "From the Gilded Age through the Twenties, Clarke shows a nation-state obsessed with sheer size, ranging from the mammoth labor union to the 'Giant Incorporated Body' of the monopoly trust. These Days of Large Thingslinks the towering Gibson Girl with the skyscraper, the pediatric regimen with stereotypes of the Jew. Spanning anthropology, medicine, architecture, business, and labor history, Clarke provides the full anatomy of imperial America and offers a model of cultural studies at its very best. " ---Cecelia Tichi, Vanderbilt University
These Men Have Seen Hard Service: The First Michigan Sharpshooters in the Civil War
by Raymond J. HerekThese Men Have Seen Hard Service recounts the fascinating history of one outstanding Michigan regiment during the Civil War.
These Possible Lives
by Fleur Jaeggy Minna ProctorBrief in the way a razor’s slice is brief, remarkable essays by a peerless stylist <P><P> New Directions is proud to present Fleur Jaeggy’s strange and mesmerizing essays about the writers Thomas De Quincey, John Keats, and Marcel Schwob. A renowned stylist of hyper-brevity in fiction, Fleur Jaeggy proves herself an even more concise master of the essay form, albeit in a most peculiar and lapidary poetic vein. Of De Quincey’s early nineteenth-century world we hear of the habits of writers: Charles Lamb “spoke of ‘Lilliputian rabbits’ when eating frog fricassse”; Henry Fuseli “ate a diet of raw meat in order to obtain splendid dreams”; “Hazlitt was perceptive about musculature and boxers”; and “Wordsworth used a buttery knife to cut the pages of a first-edition Burke.” In a book of “blue devils” and night visions, the Keats essay opens: “In 1803, the guillotine was a common child’s toy.” And poor Schwob’s end comes as he feels “like a ‘dog cut open alive’”: “His face colored slightly, turning into a mask of gold. His eyes stayed open imperiously. No one could shut his eyelids. The room smoked of grief.” Fleur Jaeggy’s essays—or are they prose poems?—smoke of necessity: the pages are on fire.
These Silent Mansions: A life in graveyards
by Jean Sprackland'A refreshingly original meditation... I wish I had written it myself' Literary ReviewGraveyards are oases: places of escape, peace and reflection. Liminal sites of commemoration, where the past is close enough to touch. Yet they also reflect their living community - how in our restless, accelerated modern world, we are losing our sense of connection to the dead.Jean Sprackland - the prize-winning poet and author of Strands - travels back through her life, revisiting her once local graveyards. In seeking out the stories of those who lived and died there, remembered and forgotten, she unearths what has been lost.