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A City for Children: Women, Architecture, and the Charitable Landscapes of Oakland, 1850-1950
by Marta GutmanAmerican cities are constantly being built and rebuilt, resulting in ever-changing skylines and neighborhoods. While the dynamic urban landscapes of New York, Boston, and Chicago have been widely studied, there is much to be gleaned from west coast cities, especially in California, where the migration boom at the end of the nineteenth century permanently changed the urban fabric of these newly diverse, plural metropolises. Ina"A City for Children," Marta Gutman focuses on the use and adaptive reuse of everyday buildings in Oakland, California, to make the city a better place for children. She introduces us to the women who were determined to mitigate the burdens placed on working-class families by an indifferent industrial capitalist economy. Often without the financial means to build from scratch, women did not tend to conceive of urban land as a blank slate to be wiped clean for development. Instead, Gutman shows how, over and over, women turned private houses in Oakland into orphanages, kindergartens, settlement houses, and day care centers, and in the process built the charitable landscapeOCoa network of places that was critical for the betterment of children, families, and public life. a The industrial landscape of Oakland, riddled with the effects of social inequalities and racial prejudices, is not a neutral backdrop in GutmanOCOs story but an active player. Spanning one hundred years of history, a"A City for Childrena"provides a compelling model for building urban institutions and demonstrates that children, women, charity, and incremental construction, renovations, alterations, additions, and repurposed structures are central to the understanding of modern cities. "
A Compendium of Curious Colorado Place Names (History & Guide)
by Jim FlynnThe origins of Colorado place names offer insightful glimpses into the state's formative years. Emanuel Saltiel named his new community along the Arkansas River Cotopaxi, after a volcano in Ecuador. Rifle Creek and the town of Rifle earned their names thanks to a rifle left behind along the banks of the creek. Optimistic miners mistakenly believed Tarryall had an abundance of gold and thus named it as a place where prospectors could mine and tarry. And despite attempts by government officials to rename a small community along the I-70 corridor in western Colorado, locals refused to call it anything other than No Name. Learn these stories and more as author Jim Flynn unravels the intriguing origins of Centennial State place names.
A Computer Called Katherine: How Katherine Johnson Helped Put America on the Moon
by Suzanne SladeThe inspiring true story of mathematician Katherine Johnson--made famous by the award-winning film Hidden Figures--who counted and computed her way to NASA and helped put a man on the moon!Katherine knew it was wrong that African Americans didn't have the same rights as others--as wrong as 5+5=12. She knew it was wrong that people thought women could only be teachers or nurses--as wrong as 10-5=3. And she proved everyone wrong by zooming ahead of her classmates, starting college at fifteen, and eventually joining NASA, where her calculations helped pioneer America's first manned flight into space, its first manned orbit of Earth, and the world's first trip to the moon!Award-winning author Suzanne Slade and debut artist Veronica Miller Jamison tell the story of a NASA "computer" in this smartly written, charmingly illustrated biography.
A Concise History of Florida (Brief History Ser.)
by James C. ClarkA quick overview of the Sunshine State&’s fascinating past, with photos and illustrations included. In 1513, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León first set foot on Florida&’s east coast. The land he discovered was a geographic anomaly so distinctive that one day, centuries later, astronaut Neil Armstrong would say that Florida was the first shape on earth he recognized on his return from a visit to the moon. This unique state has witnessed such momentous events as the 1959 arrival of the first Cuban exiles under Fidel Castro and the 1981 launch of the Columbia—the first space shuttle. Join historian James C. Clark as he chronicles the surprising history of the Sunshine State in this concise and captivating book.
A Coney Island Reader: Through Dizzy Gates of Illusion
by Parascandola, Louis J.; Parascandola, JohnThis literary anthology celebrates the history and romance of Coney Island with works by some of the 19th and 20th centuries&’ greatest authors and poets. Featuring a stunning gallery of portraits by the world's finest poets, essayists, and fiction writers--including Walt Whitman, Stephen Crane, José Martí, Maxim Gorky, Federico García Lorca, Isaac Bashevis Singer, E. E. Cummings, Djuna Barnes, Colson Whitehead, Robert Olen Butler, and Katie Roiphe—this anthology illuminates the unique history and transporting experience of New York City&’s quintessential beach destination. Moody, mystical, and enchanting, Coney Island has thrilled newcomers and soothed native New Yorkers for decades. Its fantasy entertainments, renowned beach foods, world-class boardwalk, and expansive beach offer a kaleidoscopic panorama of people, places, and events that have inspired writers of all types and nationalities. It becomes, as Lawrence Ferlinghetti once wrote, "a Coney Island of the mind."
A Confederate Biography: The Cruise Of Css Shenandoah
by Dwight HughesBased primarily on the words of those who lived it, A Confederate Biography is a comprehensive narrative of the cruise of the CSS Shenandoah. More than a thrilling sea story, the journey provides a window of historical perspective on the Civil War. From October 1864 to November 1865, the officers of the Shenandoah carried the Confederacy and the conflict around the globe and to the ends of the earth through every extreme of sea and storm. Their observations looking back from the most remote and alien surroundings imaginable, along with viewpoints of those they encountered, illuminate the hearts and minds of contestants North and South. These Americans stood together in defense of their country as they understood it, pursuing a difficult and dangerous mission in which they succeeded spectacularly after it no longer mattered. Through their eyes, the potentially decisive international arena of the war, governed by complex maritime and trade law, comes alive. The neutrality, or lack thereof, of major European powers was a central concern to both sides. Shenandoah was smack in the middle of this diplomatic maelstrom and contributed to it. And within the navy, a generational clash arose between antebellum orthodoxy and a professional officer corps emerging from the new Naval Academy, rapid technological advances, contemporary social reforms, and the crucible of war. This difference was manifest between the captain of Shenandoah and his young lieutenants. The men they led, however, were a polyglot assemblage of merchant sailors of nearly every nation and color--including several Yankees and African Americans--operating within its own rigidly authoritarian and cramped society. Shenandoah herself was a magnificent vessel, the epitome of rich and ancient maritime heritages, but also a paradigm of dramatic transitions from the small wooden sailing navy to the second largest, most powerful, and technologically advanced fleet in the world. Her commerce raiding mission was a watery form of asymmetric warfare in the spirit of John Mosby, Bedford Forrest, and W. T. Sherman. It was arguably the most successful military effort of the Confederacy in terms of cost versus mission accomplished, but the strategic effectiveness of the strategy remains questionable. Shenandoah fired the last gun of the Civil War, set the land of the midnight sun aglow with flaming Yankee whalers, and, seven months after Appomattox, lowered the last Confederate banner. This is a biography of a ship and a cruise, and a microcosm of the Confederate-American experience.
A Cook's Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal
by Anthony BourdainBourdain crisscrosses the world, sampling local delicacies from the sublime to the bizarre. Throughout his travels, Bourdain discovers again and again the importance of community, kinship, and the power of food to bring people together.
A Copybook for Japanese Ink - Painting
by Shutei Ota Reiko ChibaThis book is designed for the amateur artist who is eager to find a new outlet for his talents as well as for the one who has already discovered the enchantingworld of Japanese ink-painting. It is, quite frankly, a copybook, and it does not pretend to be anything else. As editor Reiko Chiba says of the paintings in the book, "These basic inspirations are to be individually altered and improved." The paintings are the work of Shutei Ota, an artist who has had a long career of introducing Japanese ink-painting to Westerners. As a teacher, she has found the language barrier to be no handicap. She teaches by showing) by example, and by holding the hands of her students-beginning immediately with strokes and foregoing preliminary sketches. "Paint now" is her philosophy. She likes to think of her paintings as written compositions. Each stroke is a sentence, and each sentence builds up to a complete message or picture. In this book, examples graded from easy to difficult are given. Westerners will no doubt make practical use of the art to create place cards, greeting cards, Christmas cards, and the like for personal use. Beyond this, of course, the study of Japanese ink painting will lead to better understanding of the discipline of Oriental arts in general.
A Corkscrew Is Most Useful: The Travellers of Empire
by Nicholas MurrayIn the early 19th century there was a huge surge forward in travel of all kinds. Queen Victoria's accession in 1837 came barely a year after John Murray's first guidebook was published. Then in 1838 Bradshaw's famous portable railway timetable appeared. In 1841 Thomas Cook, the world's first travel agent, organised its first tour (from London to Leicester and back by train). The age of mass tourism had arrived. Side by side with it another phenomenom began to develop: exploration to wilder shores and uncharted lands. This is the focus of Nicholas Murray's fascinating book which draws upon the extraordinary stories of Livingstone's journey across Africa; Burton and Speke reaching Lake Tanganyika; John Stuart crossing Australia from south to north; Livingstone reaching the Zambezi; Richard Burton's travels across Arabia, and countless others' extraordinary and brave expeditions.
A Corkscrew is Most Useful: The Travellers of Empire
by Nicholas MurrayIn the early 19th century there was a huge surge forward in travel of all kinds. Queen Victoria's accession in 1837 came barely a year after John Murray's first guidebook was published. Then in 1838 Bradshaw's famous portable railway timetable appeared. In 1841 Thomas Cook, the world's first travel agent, organised its first tour (from London to Leicester and back by train). The age of mass tourism had arrived. Side by side with it another phenomenom began to develop: exploration to wilder shores and uncharted lands. This is the focus of Nicholas Murray's fascinating book which draws upon the extraordinary stories of Livingstone's journey across Africa; Burton and Speke reaching Lake Tanganyika; John Stuart crossing Australia from south to north; Livingstone reaching the Zambezi; Richard Burton's travels across Arabia, and countless others' extraordinary and brave expeditions.
A Corner of the World
by Dick Cluster Mylene Fernández Pintado"Mylene Fernandez offers us a magnificent gift. Her story of lost love and the difficult pursuit of literature is at the same time an X-ray of life in Havana, set in a present where glimpses of the future have not yet arrived."-Leonardo Padura, author of The Man Who Loved Dogs and the Mario Conde novels of HavanaIn contemporary Havana, "Do I stay or do I go?" is always the question, and love doesn't necessarily conquer all.A cautious, reserved professor of Spanish Literature, Marian has no idea that her quiet life is about to be turned upside down. When she's asked to review the work of a young, ambitious first-time novelist, she meets Daniel, and their love affair leads her to question both the choices she's made so far in her life and the opportunities she might yet still have.Theirs is the story of an intense and impossible love, set in today's Havana, a city where there can be no plans, where chance is the order of the day and a fierce sense of loyalty and pride coexists with the desire to live beyond the island's isolation."The fresh panorama of Cuban society today is painted without taboos or constraints, with a faith in human possibilities, and above all with a courage that stems from what is most legitimate and durable in ourselves."-Nancy Morejón, author of Looking Within: Selected Poems and Piedra Pulida"A Corner of the World is about desires and dreams, and, of course, about love."-Achy Obejas, author of Days of Awe and Ruins"Like the best of Truman Capote, another master of the short novel, Mylene Fernández gives us a cast of unforgettable characters: contradictory, complex, and human."-Fernando Pérez, director of Suite Habana, Life Is to Whistle, and Madagascar"To read this book is to encounter one of the best and most intimate works of Cuban literature of the 21st century."-Mabel Cuesta, author of Cuba post-soviética: un cuerpo narrado en clave de mujer"A sad, erotic, tender, and sometimes ironic tale of passion and desertion. ... the city becomes a co-protagonist, a confidante, a point of departure and return, and of waiting."--Senel Paz, novelist and screenwriter of Strawberry and Chocolate, Things I Left in Havana, and In the Sky with Diamondsd. It's for readers curious about the interior adventures of their fellow human beings, adventures that come with literary pleasures and an alchemy of fiction and life."--Senel Paz, novelist and screen writer (Strawberry and Chocolate, Waiting List, Things I Left in Havana, and In the Sky with Diamonds)Mylene Fernández-Pintado's novels have won the Italo Calvino Prize and Cuba's Critics' Award. She currently lives between Havana and Lugano, Switzerland. This is the first of her works to be translated into English.
A Country Between: Making a Home Where Both Sides of Jerusalem Collide
by Stephanie Saldaña"Behind every dark moment, there is another hidden world. The trick is to hold out long enough to make it there."When American writer Stephanie Saldaña finds herself in an empty house at the beginning of Nablus Road, the dividing line between East and West Jerusalem, she is a new wife trying to navigate a fragile terrain, both within her marriage and throughout the country in which she has chosen to live.Pregnant with her first child, Stephanie struggles to protect her family, their faith, and herself from the cracks of Middle Eastern conflict that threaten to shatter the world around her. But as her due date approaches, she must reconcile herself with her choice to bring a child into a dangerous world. Determined to piece together life from the brokenness, she sets out to uncover small instances of beauty to balance the delicate coexistence between love, motherhood, and a country so often at war.In an urban valley in Jerusalem, A Country Between captures the fragile ecosystem of the Middle East and the difficult first years of motherhood in the midst of a conflict-torn city. What unfolds is a celebration of faith, language, family, and love that fills the space between what was shattered, leaving us whole once more.
A Countryman's Lot: Tales From The Dales
by Max HardcastleMax and Vicky Hardcastle have a daydream . . .One day, they'll sell their cramped city-centre antiques shop and the overflowing upstairs flat and relocate to the beautiful Yorkshire Dales. If they could only find the perfect place to house both family and business, then that fantasy might become a reality. . . When a smallholding in a remote Dales village comes on the market, it seems like the answer to their prayers. Bullpen Farm might need 'some renovation', but it has an orchard, outbuildings and all the charm they've dreamt of. Before long, the Hardcastles find themselves the proud owners of a collection of ramshackle buildings and the newest members of a close-knit community which seems to have more than its fair share of eccentrics.From the antics of the antiques trade to the uproarious incidents of village life, it turns out that rural living isn't quite as tranquil as they'd imagined!'A happy, satisfying and very funny book' James Herriot
A Countryman's Lot: Tales From The Dales
by Max HardcastleMax and Vicky Hardcastle have a daydream . . .One day, they'll sell their cramped city-centre antiques shop and the overflowing upstairs flat and relocate to the beautiful Yorkshire Dales. If they could only find the perfect place to house both family and business, then that fantasy might become a reality. . . When a smallholding in a remote Dales village comes on the market, it seems like the answer to their prayers. Bullpen Farm might need 'some renovation', but it has an orchard, outbuildings and all the charm they've dreamt of. Before long, the Hardcastles find themselves the proud owners of a collection of ramshackle buildings and the newest members of a close-knit community which seems to have more than its fair share of eccentrics.From the antics of the antiques trade to the uproarious incidents of village life, it turns out that rural living isn't quite as tranquil as they'd imagined!'A happy, satisfying and very funny book' James Herriot
A Coup in Turkey: A Tale of Democracy, Despotism and Vengeance in a Divided Land
by Jeremy SealThe most dramatic, revealing and little-known story in Turkey's history - which illuminates the nation'Through the spellbinding career of a single, ill-fated leader, Jeremy Seal illuminates a bitterly divided country' Colin Thubron'Read this book if you're interested in Turkey. Read it if you're interested in power, hubris and redemption. Read it' Christopher de Bellaigue, author of The Islamic EnlightenmentIn the spring of 2016 travel writer Jeremy Seal went to Turkey to investigate perhaps the most dramatic, revealing and little-known episode in the country's history - the 'original' coup of 1960, which deposed the traditionalist Prime Minister Adnan Menderes. The story of Menderes - to his adoring supporters the country's founding democrat; to his sworn enemies its most infamous traitor - goes to the heart of the feud that continues to rage between the Western and secular ambitions of a minority elite and the religious and conservative instincts of the small-town majority. A Coup in Turkey is a thrilling account of the events leading up to the coup and the trials and executions that followed, a story of political subterfuge and score-settling, courtroom drama, state execution, authoritarian intolerance and ideological division. Seal travels through President Erdogan's Turkey, tracking down eye-witness accounts from survivors of the Menderes era in Istanbul, the historic metropolis, and the new capital at Ankara. As he expertly guides us through this extraordinary story, so the compelling parallels between past and present become strikingly clear, and he illuminates this troubled nation with a deep sympathy and love for the people and places he writes about. By focussing on one key event - one which many Turks regard with shame - this evocative, gripping portrait of Turkey recentres our understanding of the past and makes sense of one of Europe's most bewildering yet intriguing neighbours.'A wonderful writer' Robert Macfarlane
A Course Called America: Fifty States, Five Thousand Fairways, and the Search for the Great American Golf Course
by Tom CoyneGlobe-trotting golfer Tom Coyne has finally come home. And he’s ready to play all of it. After playing hundreds of courses overseas in the birthplace of golf, Coyne, the New York Times bestselling author of A Course Called Ireland and A Course Called Scotland, returns to his own birthplace and delivers a rollicking love letter to golf in the United States. <P><P>In the span of one unforgettable year, Coyne crisscrosses the country in search of its greatest golf experience, playing every course to ever host a US Open, along with more than two hundred hidden gems and heavyweights, visiting all fifty states to find a better understanding of his home country and countrymen. Coyne’s journey begins where the US Open and US Amateur got their start, historic Newport Country Club in Rhode Island. As he travels from the oldest and most elite of links to the newest and most democratic, Coyne finagles his way onto coveted first tees (Shinnecock, Oakmont, Chicago GC) between rounds at off-the-map revelations, like ranch golf in Eastern Oregon and homemade golf in the Navajo Nation. He marvels at the golf miracle hidden in the sand hills of Nebraska, and plays an unforgettable midnight game under bright sunshine on the summer solstice in Fairbanks, Alaska. <P><P>More than just a tour of the best golf the United States has to offer, Coyne’s quest connects him with hundreds of American golfers, each from a different background but all with one thing in common: pride in welcoming Coyne to their course. Trading stories and swing tips with caddies, pros, and golf buddies for the day, Coyne adopts the wisdom of one of his hosts in Minnesota: the best courses are the ones you play with the best people. But, in the end, only one stop on Coyne’s journey can be ranked the Great American Golf Course. <P><P>Throughout his travels, he invites golfers to debate and help shape his criteria for judging the quintessential American course. Should it be charmingly traditional or daringly experimental? An architectural showpiece or a natural wonder? Countless conversations and gut instinct lead him to seek out a course that feels bold and idealistic, welcoming yet imperfect, with a little revolutionary spirit and a damn good hot dog at the turn. He discovers his long-awaited answer in the most unlikely of places. Packed with fascinating tales from American golf history, comic road misadventures, illuminating insights into course design, and many a memorable round with local golfers and celebrity guests alike, A Course Called America is an epic narrative travelogue brimming with heart and soul. <P><P><b>A New York Times Bestseller</b>
A Course Called Ireland
by Tom CoyneAn epic Celtic sojourn in search of ancestors, nostalgia, and the world?s greatest round of golf In his thirties, married, and staring down impending fatherhood, Tom Coyne was well familiar with the last refuge of the adult male: the golfing trip. Intent on designing a golf trip to end all others, Coyne looked to Ireland, the place where his father had taught him to love the game years before. As he studied a map of the island and plotted his itinerary, it dawned on Coyne that Ireland was ringed with golf holes. The country began to look like one giant round of golf, so Coyne packed up his clubs and set off to play all of it. And since Irish golfers didn?t take golf carts, neither would he. He would walk the entire way. A Course Called Ireland is the story of a walking- averse golfer who treks his way around an entire country, spending sixteen weeks playing every seaside hole in Ireland and often battling through all four seasons in one Irish afternoon. Coyne plays everything from the top-ranked links in the world to nine-hole courses crowded with livestock. Along the way, he searches out his family?s roots, discovers that a once-poor country has been transformed by an economic boom, and finds that the only thing tougher to escape than Irish sand traps are Irish pubs. By turns hilarious and poetic, A Course Called Ireland is a magnificent tour of a vibrant land and a paean to the world?s greatest game. .
A Course Called Ireland
by Tom CoyneAn epic Celtic sojourn in search of ancestors, nostalgia, and the world's greatest round of golf. In his thirties, married, and staring down impending fatherhood, Tom Coyne was well familiar with the last refuge of the adult male: the golfing trip. Intent on designing a golf trip to end all others, Coyne looked to Ireland, the place where his father had taught him to love the game years before. As he studied a map of the island and plotted his itinerary, it dawned on Coyne that Ireland was ringed with golf holes. The country began to look like one giant round of golf, so Coyne packed up his clubs and set off to play all of it. And since Irish golfers didn't take golf carts, neither would he. He would walk the entire way. A Course Called Ireland is the story of a walking- averse golfer who treks his way around an entire country, spending sixteen weeks playing every seaside hole in Ireland and often battling through all four seasons in one Irish afternoon. Coyne plays everything from the top-ranked links in the world to nine-hole courses crowded with livestock. Along the way, he searches out his family's roots, discovers that a once-poor country has been transformed by an economic boom, and finds that the only thing tougher to escape than Irish sand traps are Irish pubs. By turns hilarious and poetic, A Course Called Ireland is a magnificent tour of a vibrant land and a paean to the world's greatest game.
A Course Called Ireland
by Tom CoyneAn epic Celtic sojourn in search of ancestors, nostalgia, and the world?s greatest round of golfIn his thirties, married, and staring down impending fatherhood, Tom Coyne was well familiar with the last refuge of the adult male: the golfing trip. Intent on designing a golf trip to end all others, Coyne looked to Ireland, the place where his father had taught him to love the game years before. As he studied a map of the island and plotted his itinerary, it dawned on Coyne that Ireland was ringed with golf holes. The country began to look like one giant round of golf, so Coyne packed up his clubs and set off to play all of it. And since Irish golfers didn?t take golf carts, neither would he. He would walk the entire way. A Course Called Ireland is the story of a walking- averse golfer who treks his way around an entire country, spending sixteen weeks playing every seaside hole in Ireland and often battling through all four seasons in one Irish afternoon. Coyne plays everything from the top-ranked links in the world to nine-hole courses crowded with livestock. Along the way, he searches out his family?s roots, discovers that a once-poor country has been transformed by an economic boom, and finds that the only thing tougher to escape than Irish sand traps are Irish pubs. By turns hilarious and poetic, A Course Called Ireland is a magnificent tour of a vibrant land and a paean to the world?s greatest game.
A Crack in the Earth
by Haim WatzmanThe Jordan Rift Valley, stretching from the Red Sea to Lebanon, was ripped open millions of years ago by vast forces within the earth. This geological object has also been a part of human history ever since early humans used it as a path in their journey out of Africa. And for a quarter of a century it has been part of the biography of Israeli writer Haim Watzman.In the autumn of 2004, as his country was riven by a fierce debate over its borders, Watzman took a two-week journey up the valley. Along the way he met scientists who try to understand the rift through the evidence lying on its surface-an archaeologist who reconstructs the fallen altars of a long-forgotten people, a zoologist whose study of bird societies has produced a theory of why organisms cooperate, and a geologist who thinks that the valley will some day be an ocean. He encountered people whose life and work on the shores of the Dead Sea and Jordan River have led them to dream of paradise and to seem to build Gardens of Eden on earth-a booster for a chemical factory, the director of a tourist site, and an aging socialist farmer who curates a museum of idols. And he discovered that the geography's instability is mirrored in the volatility of the tales that people tell about the Sea of Galilee.As an observant Jew who has written extensively about science and scholarship, Watzman tries to understand the valley in all its complexity-its physical facts, its role in human history and his own life, and the myths it has engendered. He realizes that human beings can never see the rift in isolation. "It is the stories that men and women have told to explain what they see and what they do as a result that create the rift as we see it," he writes. "As hard as we try to comprehend the landscape itself, it is humanity that we find.Watzman's poetic evocation of the scientific and the human is a unique chronicle of a quest for knowledge.Finalist, Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, 2008.
A Crack in the Wall
by Miranda France Claudia PiñeiroPablo Borla's marriage is reduced to confrontations with his wife over their daughter's rebellious ways and his firm builds only repellent office blocks destroying the fabric of old Buenos Aires. It all changes with the arrival of a young woman who brings to light a murder committed decades ago by those in his office. A murder everyone assumed was forgotten.Claudia Piñeiro, after working as a professional accountant, became a journalist, playwright and television scriptwriter and in 1992 won the prestigious Pléyade journalism award. She has more recently turned to fiction; All Yours (finalist for the 2003 Planeta Prize) and Thursday Night Widows.
A Critical Ethnography of 'Westerners' Teaching English in China: Shanghaied in Shanghai (Routledge Critical Studies in Asian Education)
by Phiona StanleyTens of thousands of Western ‘teachers’, many of whom would not be considered teachers elsewhere, are employed to teach English in public and private education in China. Little has previously been known, except anecdotally, about their experiences, about the effect they have on education in the context, or on students’ perceptions of ‘the West’ that result from this contact. This book is an ethnographic study of Westerners’ lived experiences teaching English in Shanghai, China. It is based on three years of groundbreaking research into the pre-service training, classroom practices, personal identities and motives, and local socially constructed roles of a group of ‘backpacker teachers’ from the UK, the USA and Canada. It is a study that goes beyond the classroom, addressing broader questions about the sociology, and politics, of transnational education and China’s evolving relationship with the outside world.
A Crown of Fire: The Life and Times of Girolamo Savonarola
by Pierre Van PaassenThe life of Savonarola and its place in the history of Italy and the Church has been subject to many interpretations. In this book Pierre van Paassen gives it the most balanced, entertaining, and factual treatment yet. Savonarola and Firenze (Florence) however are so inextricably bound together that the two must be discussed at one and the same time. Florence was at the height of her glory in the most brilliant phase of the Renaissance and herein the splendor and picturesqueness of that whole epoch is brought vividly to life. Mr. van Paassen traces Savonarola's youth and his teenage love for a girl in Ferrara, his hometown, and then his sudden decision (quite like Loyola's) to enter the Church. Following his novitiate Savonarola was called to Florence and immortality by Lorenzo the Magnificent. In this most exciting period of history the author traces his contacts with Lorenzo and the opposition, with the artists, Botticelli and Michelangelo, with Machiavelli, with the great Pope, Alexander VI, with Lucrezia, Cesare and the Sforza family. There is Savonarola's conversion of the whole city of Florence with the entire population walking in a procession of penitence. When the king of France invaded Italy Savonarola went out to meet him and thus saved the city while the rest of the country was ravaged by war.Mr. van Paassen examines Savonarola's ideas on democracy and freedom, on everyday questions, and his strange predictions and prophesies which came to be fulfilled. And finally, the accusation of heresy, the trial and torture, and the burning at the stake.Most books on Savonarola used the monk's career and death to belabor Pope Alexander VI and the Borgia family. Not so here: rather Mr. van Paassen's theme is that had Savonarola's counsel been heeded the Reformation would have taken place within, rather than outside, the Church.
A Culinary History of Myrtle Beach & the Grand Strand: Fish & Grits, Oyster Roasts and Boiled Peanuts (American Palate)
by Becky BillingsleyThe culinary history of Georgetown and Horry Counties reflects a unique merging of Native American, European, African and Caribbean cuisines. Learn how slaves taught their masters to create vast wealth on rice plantations, what George Washington likely ate when visiting South Carolina in 1791, how the turpentine industry gave rise to a sticky sweet potato cooking method and why locals eagerly anticipate one special time of year when boiled peanuts are at their best. Author Becky Billingsley, a longtime Myrtle Beach-area restaurant journalist, digs deep into historic records, serves up tantalizing personal interviews and dishes on the best local restaurants, where many delicious farm-to-table heritage foods can still be enjoyed.
A Culinary History of Southern Delaware: Scrapple, Beach Plums and Muskrat (American Palate)
by Denise ClemonsHistoric farms and waterways crisscross Southern Delaware, connecting its residents to a set of rich culinary traditions. The original Nanticoke inhabitants baked hearty johnnycakes and hunted wild game. Hungry for a taste of home, German settlers developed scrapple from local ingredients. Today's home cooks and chefs draw their bounty from the land and sea for a distinct, seasonal cuisine. Summer strawberries and peaches from local farms and orchards become delectable preserves thanks to treasured family recipes. Come springtime, succulent blue crab reigns supreme. With recipes for regional favorites like beach plum jelly and chicken with slippery dumplings, author Denise Clemons explores the history behind the ingredients and savors the story in every dish.