Jewish ecological discourse has shown that Judaism harbors deep concern for the well-being of the natural world. However, the movement has not articulated a Jewish theology of nature, nor has it submitted the sources of Judaism to a systematic, philosophical examination.
This volume intends to contribute to the nascent discourse on Judaism and ecology by clarifying diverse conceptions of nature in Jewish thought and by using the insights of Judaism to formulate a constructive Jewish theology of nature. The twenty-one contributors consider the Bible and rabbinic literature, examine the relationship between the doctrine of creation and the doctrine of revelation in the context of natural law, and wrestle with questions of nature and morality. They look at nature in the Jewish mystical tradition, and they face the challenges to Jewish environmental activism caused by the tension between the secular nature of the environmental discourse and Jewish religious commitments.
A biochemist by profession, a polymath by inclination and erudition, Yeshayahu Leibowitz has been, since the early 1940s, one of the most incisive and controversial critics of Israeli culture and politics. His direct involvement, compelling polemics, and trenchant criticism have established his steadfast significance for contemporary Israeli—and Jewish—intellectual life. These hard-hitting essays, his first to be published in English, cover the ground Leibowitz has marked out over time with moral rigor and political insight. He considers the essence and character of historical Judaism, the problems of contemporary Judaism and Jewishness, the relationship of Judaism to Christianity, the questions of statehood, religion, and politics in Israel, and the role of women. Together these essays constitute a comprehensive critique of Israeli society and politics and a probing diagnosis of the malaise that afflicts contemporary Jewish culture.
Leibowitz’s understanding of Jewish philosophy is acute, and he brings it to bear on current issues. He argues that the Law, Halakhah, is essential to Judaism, and shows how, at present, separation of religion from state would serve the interest of halakhic observance and foster esteem for religion. Leibowitz calls the religious justification of national issues “idolatry” and finds this phenomenon at the root of many of the annexationist moves made by the state of Israel. Long one of the most outspoken critics of Israeli occupation in the conquered territories, he gives eloquent voice to his ongoing concern over the debilitating moral effects of its policies and practices on Israel itself. This translation will bring to an English-speaking audience a much-needed, lucid perspective on the present and future state of Jewish culture.
Investigate a relatively neglected but momentous period in Judean history
Nadav Sharon closely examines a critical period in Judean history, which saw the end of the Hasmonean dynasty and the beginning of Roman domination of Judea leading up to the kingship of Herod (67-37 BCE). In this period renowned Roman figures such as Pompey the Great, Julius Caesar, Gaius Cassius (a conspirator against Caesar), and Mark Anthony, led the Roman Republic on the eve of its transformation into an Empire, each having his own dealings with—and holding sway over—Judea at different times. This volume explores the impact of the Roman conquest on the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls, enhances the understanding of later Judean-Roman relations and the roots of the Great Revolt, and examines how this early period of Roman domination had on impact on later developments in Judean society and religion.
Features:
Taking a fresh look at what the Greeks and Romans thought about Jews and Judaism, Peter Schäfer locates the origin of anti-Semitism in the ancient world. Judeophobia firmly establishes Hellenistic Egypt as the generating source of anti-Semitism, with roots extending back into Egypt’s pre-Hellenistic history.
A pattern of ingrained hostility toward an alien culture emerges when Schäfer surveys an illuminating spectrum of comments on Jews and their religion in Greek and Roman writings, focusing on the topics that most interested the pagan classical world: the exodus or, as it was widely interpreted, expulsion from Egypt; the nature of the Jewish god; food restrictions, in particular abstinence from pork; laws relating to the sabbath; the practice of circumcision; and Jewish proselytism. He then probes key incidents, two fierce outbursts of hostility in Egypt: the destruction of a Jewish temple in Elephantine in 410 B.C.E. and the riots in Alexandria in 38 C.E. Asking what fueled these attacks on Jewish communities, the author discovers deep-seated ethnic resentments. It was from Egypt that hatred of Jews, based on allegations of impiety, xenophobia, and misanthropy, was transported first to Syria-Palestine and then to Rome, where it acquired a new element: fear of this small but distinctive community. To the hatred and fear, ingredients of Christian theology were soon added—a mix all too familiar in Western history.
In nineteenth-century Brazil the power of the courts rivaled that of the central government, bringing to it during its first half century of independence a stability unique in Latin America. Thomas Flory analyzes the Brazilian lower-court system, where the private interests of society and the public interests of the state intersected.
Justices of the peace—lay judges elected at the parish level—played a special role in the early years of independence, for the post represented the triumph of Brazilian liberalism’s commitment to localism and decentralization. However, as Flory shows by tracing the social history and performance of parish judges, the institution actually intensified conflict within parishes to the point of destabilizing the local regime and proved to be so independent of national interests that it all but destroyed the state.
By the 1840s the powers of the office were passed to state appointees, particularly the district judges. Flory recognizes these professional magistrates as a new elite who served as brokers between the state and the poorly articulated landowner elite, and his account of their rise reveals the mechanisms of state integration.
In focusing on the judiciary, Flory has isolated a crucial aspect of Brazil’s early history, one with broad implications for the study of nineteenth-century Latin America as a whole. He combines social, intellectual, and political perspectives—as well as national-level discussion with scrutiny of parish-level implementation—and so makes sense of a complicated, little-studied period. The study clearly shows the progression of Brazilian social thought from a serene liberal faith in the people as a nation to an abiding, very modern distrust of that nation as a threat to the state.
Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr., Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama until his elevation to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in 1979, was perhaps President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s most significant appointment to a lower court. His selection to the bench in 1955 followed by only a few months the Supreme Court’s historic decision in Brown vs. Board of Education.
At a time when America's court system increasingly tries juvenile offenders as adults, Michael Corriero draws directly from his experience as the founding judge of a special juvenile court to propose a new approach to dealing with youthful offenders.
Since 1992, Judge Corriero has presided over the Manhattan Youth Part, a New York City court specifically designed to discipline teenage offenders. Its guiding principles, clearly laid out in this book, are that children are developmentally different from adults and that a judge can be a formidable force in shaping the lives of children who appear in court.
Judging Children as Children makes a compelling argument for a better system of justice that recognizes the mental, emotional, and physical abilities of young people and provides them with an opportunity to be rehabilitated as productive members of society instead of being locked up in prisons.
Reprimand a class comic, restrain a bully, dismiss a student for brazen attire--and you may be facing a lawsuit, costly regardless of the result. This reality for today's teachers and administrators has made the issue of school discipline more difficult than ever before--and public education thus more precarious. This is the troubling message delivered in Judging School Discipline, a powerfully reasoned account of how decades of mostly well-intended litigation have eroded the moral authority of teachers and principals and degraded the quality of American education.
Judging School Discipline casts a backward glance at the roots of this dilemma to show how a laudable concern for civil liberties forty years ago has resulted in oppressive abnegation of adult responsibility now. In a rigorous analysis enriched by vivid descriptions of individual cases, the book explores 1,200 cases in which a school's right to control students was contested.
Richard Arum and his colleagues also examine several decades of data on schools to show striking and widespread relationships among court leanings, disciplinary practices, and student outcomes; they argue that the threat of lawsuits restrains teachers and administrators from taking control of disorderly and even dangerous situations in ways the public would support.
This original look at the French Reformation pits immovable object--the French appellate courts or parlements--against irresistible force--the most dynamic forms of the Protestant Reformation. Without the slightest hesitation, the high courts of Renaissance France opposed these religious innovators. By 1540, the French monarchy had largely removed the prosecution of heresy from ecclesiastical courts and handed it to the parlements. Heresy trials and executions escalated dramatically. But within twenty years, the irresistible force had overcome the immovable object: the prosecution of Protestant heresy, by then unworkable, was abandoned by French appellate courts.
Until now no one has investigated systematically the judicial history of the French Reformation. William Monter has examined the myriad encounters between Protestants and judges in French parlements, extracting information from abundant but unindexed registers of official criminal decisions both in Paris and in provincial capitals, and identifying more than 425 prisoners condemned to death for heresy by French courts between 1523 and 1560. He notes the ways in which Protestants resisted the French judicial system even before the religious wars, and sets their story within the context of heresy prosecutions elsewhere in Reformation Europe, and within the long-term history of French criminal justice.
This volume questions the motives of Supreme Court justices in a landmark case: The Supreme Court's intervention in the presidential election of 2000, and its subsequent decision in favor of George W. Bush, elicited immediate, heated, and widespread debate. Critics argued that the justices used weak legal arguments to overturn the Florida Supreme Court's ruling, ending a ballot recount and awarding the presidency to Bush. More fundamentally, they questioned the motives of conservative judges who arrived at a decision in favor of the candidate who reflected their political leanings.
Judging the Supreme Court examines this controversial case and the extensive attention it has received. To fully understand the case, Clarke Rountree argues, we must understand "judicial motives." These are comprised of more than each judge's personal opinions. Judges' motives, which Rountree calls "rhetorical performances," are as influential and publicly discussed as their decisions themselves. Before they are dissected in the media, judges' motives are carefully crafted by the decision- makers themselves, their critics, and their defenders. Justices consider not only the motives of the government, of military officials, of criminals, of public speakers, and of others, they also consider, construct, construe, spin, and deconstruct the motives of dissenters (whom they want to show are "misguided"), earlier courts, lower courts, and, especially, themselves.
Every judicial opinion is essentially a portrait of motives that says, "Here's what we did and here's why we did it." Well-constructed judicial motives reinforce the idea that we live under "the rule of law," while motives articulated less successfully raise questions about the legitimacy not just of individual judicial decisions but also of our political system and its foundation on an impartial judiciary. In Bush v. Gore, Rountree concludes, the judges of the majority opinion were not motivated by judicial concerns about law and justice, but rather by their own political and personal motives.
This volume presents the first broadly inclusive collection, with accessible text and English translation, of documents related to judicial decisions in the ancient Near East, the oldest setting for such writing in the world. The texts in this volume belong to various genres, especially legal records and letters, and span almost two thousand years. With such varied material, the work depends on the expertise of specialists in each setting, from the Sumerian of early Ur to the late Akkadian of Babylonia under the Persians. The collection brings together not only 183 transliterated texts and new translations but also introductions and commentary that place these legal documents in their historical and social contexts. A glossary of legal terms, a concordance of texts included, and an index of legal terms makes this an invaluable tool for students and scholars across disciplines. The contributors are Dominique Charpin, Sophie Démare-Lafont, Daniel E. Fleming, Francis Joannès, Bertrand Lafont, Brigitte Lion, Ignacio Márquez Rowe, Cécile Michel, and Pierre Villard.
The judicial selection debate continues. Merit selection is used by a majority of states but remains the least well understood method for choosing judges. Proponents claim that it emphasizes qualifications and diversity over politics, but there is little empirical evidence regarding its performance.
In Judicial Merit Selection, Greg Goelzhauser amasses a wealth of data to examine merit selection’s institutional performance from an internal perspective. While his previous book, Choosing State Supreme Court Justices, compares outcomes across selection mechanisms, here he delves into what makes merit selection unique—its use of nominating commissions to winnow applicants prior to gubernatorial appointment.
Goelzhauser’s analyses include a rich case study from inside a nominating commission’s proceedings as it works to choose nominees; the use of public records to examine which applicants commissions choose and which nominees governors choose; evaluation of which attorneys apply for consideration and which judges apply for promotion; and examination of whether design differences across systems impact performance in the seating of qualified and diverse judges.
The results have critical public policy implications.
Congress and the president are not the only branches that deal with fiscal issues in times of war. In this innovative book, Nancy Staudt focuses on the role of federal courts in fiscal matters during warfare and high-cost national defense emergencies. There is, she argues, a judicial power of the purse that becomes evident upon examining the budgetary effects of judicial decision making. The book provides substantial evidence that judges are willing—maybe even eager—to redirect private monies into government hands when the country is in peril, but when the judges receive convincing cues that ongoing wartime activities undermine the nation’s interests, they are more likely to withhold funds from the government by deciding cases in favor of private individuals and entities who show up in court.
In stark contrast with conventional legal, political, and institutional thought that privileges factors associated with individual preferences, The Judicial Power of the Purse sheds light on environmental factors in judicial decision making and will be an excellent read for students of judicial behavior in political science and law.
The amparo suit is a Mexican legal institution similar in its effects to such Anglo-American procedures as habeas corpus, error, and the various forms of injunctive relief. It has undergone a long evolution since it was incorporated into the Constitution of 1857. Today, its principal purpose is to protect private individuals in the enjoyment of the rights guaranteed by the first twenty-nine articles of the Constitution.
Mexico after its independence produced many constitutions. One of the earliest problems was to find an adequate means of defending the Constitution against ill-founded interpretations of its precepts. Like the United States, Mexico has developed a system of constitutional defense in which the judiciary is the supreme interpreter of what this document means. Unlike the United States Supreme Court, however, the Mexican Supreme Court has not been innovative in its decisions or contradicted the administration on major policy decisions. This difference must be attributed to the civil law system of Mexico as well as to the political climate.
The first part of Richard D. Baker’s book describes the historical background of amparo and other methods of constitutional defense in Mexico. The three men most closely associated with creating a judicial form of constitutional defense in Mexico were Manuel Crescencio Rejón, José Fernando Ramírez, and Mariano Otero. Their own writings indicate that the immediate source of amparo must be found in the American institution of judicial review that was transmitted to Mexicans through Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America.
The second part is an exposition of the workings of the amparo suit in the twentieth century and the constitutional and statutory provisions affecting it. Since 1857, when it was incorporated into article 102 of the Constitution, the amparo suit has evolved into a highly complex institution performing three functions: the defense of the civil liberties enumerated in the first twenty-nine articles of the Constitution, the determination of the constitutionality of federal and state legislation, and cassation. The Supreme Court is primarily limited to defending civil liberties through the amparo suit; it remains less innovative and more restricted than the United States system of judicial review, especially in the effect of its judgments on political agencies.
Baker’s study is the first one in English dealing with this subject and is one of the most extensive in any language. It should be welcome as a valuable tool to all students of Mexican law, history, and political thought.
They say the past always catches up to you—but if he can help it, Parker won’t let his. In The Jugger, an old contact who could blow Parker’s cover tells Parker he’s in trouble — then turns up dead. With Parker’s skeletons on the verge of escaping from their closet, he must put the pieces together—at any cost—before it’s too late.
Once upon a time, there lived a humble juggler, Barnaby by name, who was skillful but suffered every winter from poverty. A devotee of the Virgin, he had few failings apart from enjoying drink a little too much. One day he met a monk, who persuaded him to enter a monastery. All the brethren had exceptional skills to exercise on behalf of Mary, but the juggler felt he had nothing worthy to offer. Finally, he had the notion to juggle copper balls and knives before the altar of the Virgin in the chapel. The others caught him in the act and deemed his behavior madness, but after seeing the Mother of God descend to soothe him, they realized that he was blessed.
Writers, illustrators, and musicians from the Middle Ages to the present have loved this simple, medieval tale. In 1890, Anatole France (1844–1924) adapted the original poem as the short story “Le jongleur de Notre-Dame.” Dumbarton Oaks is pleased to bring this version back into print for the enjoyment of modern audiences, featuring a translation by Jan M. Ziolkowski and Art Deco illustrations by Maurice Lalau (1881–1961), faithfully reproduced from a 1924 printing.
Once upon a time, there lived a humble juggler, Barnaby by name, who was skillful but suffered every winter from poverty. A devotee of the Virgin, he had few failings apart from enjoying drink a little too much. One day he met a monk, who persuaded him to enter a monastery. All the brethren had exceptional skills to exercise on behalf of Mary, but the juggler felt he had nothing worthy to offer. Finally, he had the notion to juggle copper balls and knives before the altar of the Virgin in the chapel. The others caught him in the act and deemed his behavior madness, but after seeing the Mother of God descend to soothe him, they realized that he was blessed.
In 1890, Anatole France (1844–1924) adapted this medieval French poem as the short story “Le jongleur de Notre-Dame,” republished in 1906 with illustrations by Henri Malteste (1881–1961)—who signed his work “Malatesta”—a specialist in medievalesque illustrations and calligraphy. Dumbarton Oaks is pleased to bring this version back for the enjoyment of modern audiences both young and old, with artwork reproduced from original gouaches, and a translation by Jan M. Ziolkowski facing the French text.
Once upon a time, there lived in France a humble juggler, Barnaby by name, who was skillful but suffered every winter from poverty. A devotee of the Virgin, he had few failings apart from enjoying drink a little too much. One day he met a monk, who persuaded him to enter a monastery. There he felt miserable at his inability to show his devotion to the Virgin Mary as the other monks did. Then an idea came to him: he would perform before the Madonna! The monks caught him and were outraged or thought he was mad, but soon they saw the Virgin descend from the altar to soothe him. He may be simple, but his heartfelt offering of talent was appreciated. The moral? We do not need to be maestros or to have much money and master’s degrees. We all have something to give.
This simple story has medieval beginnings—a lovely poem often known as “Our Lady’s Tumbler” that dates to the 1230s. Many writers and artists have been inspired by it, and the line art in this coloring book was thoughtfully chosen and carefully prepared from books published a century or so ago. Enjoy the beauty of these illustrations as you add your own colors to the story!
This novel is about a young man, Jule, who grew up in rural Alabama in the 1930s. He experienced a peaceful farm life filled with hard work in the hot sun followed by socializing by moonlight in the cooling hours of the night. His mother, Ollie Miss, raised him “to be somebody,” as she said, and he always knew that he would follow her advice. As he grew, he developed a close friendship with the white storekeeper’s son, Rollo, and an earthly love for Berta Mae, a neighbor girl. This quiet life changed abruptly for the young Negro boy when he fled Alabama and arrived in Harlem, there to gain a foothold in that world center of black social and economic power. Although a novel, Jule is strongly autobiographical and gives insight into a vanished Harlem, a glittering community that produced a rich outpouring of distinctively American literary works. J. Lee Greene’s introduction places the novel in the context of the time and links this work with Henderson’s earlier novel – Ollie Miss, also available from the University of Alabama Press – establishing its rightful place in Afro-American literature.
Disponible por primera vez en español, Julia de Burgos cuenta la destacada historia de la poeta y activista puertorriqueña.
Julian Hawthorne (1846-1934), Nathaniel Hawthorne's only son, lived a long and influential life marked by bad circumstances and worse choices. Raised among luminaries such as Thoreau, Emerson, and the Beecher family, Julian became a promising novelist in his twenties, but his writing soon devolved into mediocrity.
What talent the young Hawthorne had was spent chasing across the changing literary and publishing landscapes of the period in search of a paycheck, writing everything from potboilers to ad copy. Julian was consistently short of funds because--as biographer Gary Scharnhorst is the first to reveal--he was supporting two households: his wife in one and a longtime mistress in the other.
The younger Hawthorne's name and work ethic gave him influence in spite of his haphazard writing. Julian helped to found Cosmopolitan and Collier's Weekly. As a Hearst stringer, he covered some of the era's most important events: McKinley's assassination, the Galveston hurricane, and the Spanish-American War, among others.
When Julian died at age 87, he had written millions of words and more than 3,000 pieces, out-publishing his father by a ratio of twenty to one. Gary Scharnhorst, after his own long career including works on Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, and other famous writers, became fascinated by the leaps and falls of Julian Hawthorne. This biography shows why.
Julian Steward and the Great Basin is a critical assessment of Steward’s work, the factors that influenced him, and his deep effect on American anthropology. Steward (1902–1972) was one of the foremost American exponents of cultural ecology, the idea that societies evolve in adaptation to their human and natural environments. He was also central in shaping basic anthropological constructs such as "hunter-gatherer" and "adaptation." But his fieldwork took place almost entirely in the Great Basin.
In one sense, the phases of Steward’s career epitomize the successive schools of anthropological theory and practice. Each chapter explores a different aspect of his work ranging from early efforts at documenting trait distributions to his later role in the development of social transformation theory, area studies, and applied anthropology.
Julian Steward and the Great Basin also corrects long-standing misperceptions that originated with Steward about lifeways of the Indians living between the Great Plains and California. It charts new directions for research, demanding a more exacting study of environmental conditions, material adaptations, and organizational responses, as well as an appreciation of the ideological and humanistic dimensions of Basin Life.
The emperor who renounced Christianity.
Julian (Flavius Claudius Iulianus) “the Apostate,” Roman Emperor, lived AD 331 or 332 to 363. Born and educated in Constantinople as a Christian, after a precarious childhood he devoted himself to literature and philosophy and became a pagan, studying in various Greek cities. In 355 his cousin Emperor Constantius called him from Athens to the court at Milan, entitled him “Caesar,” and made him governor of Gaul. Julian restored Gaul to prosperity and good government after the ravages of the Alamanni (he overthrew them at the battle of Strassburg in 357) and other Germans. Between 357 and 361 Julian’s own soldiers, refusing to serve in the East at Constantius’ orders, nearly involved Julian in war with Constantius—who, however, died in 361, making Julian sole Emperor of the Roman world. He began many reforms and proclaimed universal toleration in religion but pressed for the restoration of the older pagan worships. In 362–363 he prepared at Constantinople and then at Antioch for his expedition against Persia ruled by Shapur II. He died of a wound received in desperate battle.
Julian’s surviving works (lost are his Commentaries on his western campaigns), all in Greek, are given in the Loeb Classical Library in three volumes. The eight Orations (1–5 in Volume I, 6–8 in Volume II) include two in praise of Constantius, one praising Constantius’ wife Eusebia, and two theosophical hymns (in prose) or declamations, of interest for studies in neo-Platonism, Mithraism, and the cult of the Magna Mater in the Roman world. Misopogon (“Beard-hater”), in Volume II, assails the morals of people in Antioch; the Letters (more than eighty), in Volume III, include edicts or rescripts, mostly about Christians, encyclical or pastoral letters to priests, and private letters. Lastly in Volume III are the fragments of the work Against the Galilaeans (the Christians), written mainly to show that evidence for the idea of Christianity is lacking in the Old Testament.
The emperor who renounced Christianity.
Julian (Flavius Claudius Iulianus) “the Apostate,” Roman Emperor, lived AD 331 or 332 to 363. Born and educated in Constantinople as a Christian, after a precarious childhood he devoted himself to literature and philosophy and became a pagan, studying in various Greek cities. In 355 his cousin Emperor Constantius called him from Athens to the court at Milan, entitled him “Caesar,” and made him governor of Gaul. Julian restored Gaul to prosperity and good government after the ravages of the Alamanni (he overthrew them at the battle of Strassburg in 357) and other Germans. Between 357 and 361 Julian’s own soldiers, refusing to serve in the East at Constantius’ orders, nearly involved Julian in war with Constantius—who, however, died in 361, making Julian sole Emperor of the Roman world. He began many reforms and proclaimed universal toleration in religion but pressed for the restoration of the older pagan worships. In 362–363 he prepared at Constantinople and then at Antioch for his expedition against Persia ruled by Shapur II. He died of a wound received in desperate battle.
Julian’s surviving works (lost are his Commentaries on his western campaigns), all in Greek, are given in the Loeb Classical Library in three volumes. The eight Orations (1–5 in Volume I, 6–8 in Volume II) include two in praise of Constantius, one praising Constantius’ wife Eusebia, and two theosophical hymns (in prose) or declamations, of interest for studies in neo-Platonism, Mithraism, and the cult of the Magna Mater in the Roman world. Misopogon (“Beard-hater”), in Volume II, assails the morals of people in Antioch; the Letters (more than eighty), in Volume III, include edicts or rescripts, mostly about Christians, encyclical or pastoral letters to priests, and private letters. Lastly in Volume III are the fragments of the work Against the Galilaeans (the Christians), written mainly to show that evidence for the idea of Christianity is lacking in the Old Testament.
The emperor who renounced Christianity.
Julian (Flavius Claudius Iulianus) “the Apostate,” Roman Emperor, lived AD 331 or 332 to 363. Born and educated in Constantinople as a Christian, after a precarious childhood he devoted himself to literature and philosophy and became a pagan, studying in various Greek cities. In 355 his cousin Emperor Constantius called him from Athens to the court at Milan, entitled him “Caesar,” and made him governor of Gaul. Julian restored Gaul to prosperity and good government after the ravages of the Alamanni (he overthrew them at the battle of Strassburg in 357) and other Germans. Between 357 and 361 Julian’s own soldiers, refusing to serve in the East at Constantius’ orders, nearly involved Julian in war with Constantius—who, however, died in 361, making Julian sole Emperor of the Roman world. He began many reforms and proclaimed universal toleration in religion but pressed for the restoration of the older pagan worships. In 362–363 he prepared at Constantinople and then at Antioch for his expedition against Persia ruled by Shapur II. He died of a wound received in desperate battle.
Julian’s surviving works (lost are his Commentaries on his western campaigns), all in Greek, are given in the Loeb Classical Library in three volumes. The eight Orations (1–5 in Volume I, 6–8 in Volume II) include two in praise of Constantius, one praising Constantius’ wife Eusebia, and two theosophical hymns (in prose) or declamations, of interest for studies in neo-Platonism, Mithraism, and the cult of the Magna Mater in the Roman world. Misopogon (“Beard-hater”), in Volume II, assails the morals of people in Antioch; the Letters (more than eighty), in Volume III, include edicts or rescripts, mostly about Christians, encyclical or pastoral letters to priests, and private letters. Lastly in Volume III are the fragments of the work Against the Galilaeans (the Christians), written mainly to show that evidence for the idea of Christianity is lacking in the Old Testament.
With vision, hard-nosed judgment, and biting humor, Julius Nyerere confronted the challenges of nation building in modern Africa. Constructing Tanzania out of a controversial Cold War union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar, Nyerere emerged as one of independent Africa’s most influential leaders. He pursued his own brand of African socialism, called Ujamaa, with unquestioned integrity, and saw it profoundly influence movements to end white minority rule in Southern Africa. Yet his efforts to build a peaceful nation created a police state, economic crisis, and a war with Idi Amin’s Uganda. Eventually—unlike most of his contemporaries—Nyerere retired voluntarily from power, paving the way for peaceful electoral transitions in Tanzania that continue today.
Based on multinational archival research, extensive reading, and interviews with Nyerere’s family and colleagues, as well as some who suffered under his rule, Paul Bjerk provides an incisive and accessible biography of this African leader of global importance. Recognizing Nyerere’s commitment to participatory government and social equality while also confronting his authoritarian turns and policy failures, Bjerk offers a portrait of principled leadership under the difficult circumstances of postcolonial Africa.
In the late sixteenth century, Spanish explorers described encounters with North American people they called "Jumanos." Although widespread contact with Jumanos is evident in accounts of exploration and colonization in New Mexico, Texas, and adjacent regions, their scattered distribution and scant documentation have led to long-standing disagreements: was "Jumano" simply a generic name loosely applied to a number of tribes, or were they an authentic, vanished people?
In the first full-length study of the Jumanos, anthropologist Nancy Hickerson proposes that they were indeed a distinctive tribe, their wide travel pattern linked over well-established itineraries. Drawing on extensive primary sources, Hickerson also explores their crucial role as traders in a network extending from the Rio Grande to the Caddoan tribes' confederacies of East Texas and Oklahoma.
Hickerson further concludes that the Jumanos eventually became agents for the Spanish colonies, drafted as mercenary fighters and intelligence-gatherers. Her findings reinterpret the cultural history of the South Plains region, bridging numerous gaps in the area's comprehensive history and in the chronicle of these elusive people.
Beginning in the 1830s, the white actor Thomas D. Rice took to the stage as Jim Crow, and the ragged and charismatic trickster of black folklore entered—and forever transformed—American popular culture. Jump Jim Crow brings together for the first time the plays and songs performed in this guise and reveals how these texts code the complex use and abuse of blackness that has characterized American culture ever since Jim Crow’s first appearance.
Along with the prompt scripts of nine plays performed by Rice—never before published as their original audiences saw them—W. T. Lhamon, Jr., provides a reconstruction of their performance history and a provocative analysis of their contemporary meaning. His reading shows us how these plays built a public blackness, but also how they engaged a disaffected white audience, who found in Jim Crow’s sass and wit and madcap dancing an expression of rebellion and resistance against the oppression and confinement suffered by ordinary people of all colors in antebellum America and early Victorian England.
Upstaging conventional stories and forms, giving direction and expression to the unruly attitudes of a burgeoning underclass, the plays in this anthology enact a vital force still felt in great fictions, movies, and musics of the Atlantic and in the jumping, speedy styles that join all these forms.
Mark Wayne Nelson details the efforts of one of America’s most underappreciated public servants. In 1934, Franklin D. Roosevelt invited Marriner S. Eccles, a Mormon from Utah, to join his administration. As a Republican businessman, Eccles seemed an unlikely candidate for the role of leading crusader for a fairer and more economically sound distribution of the nation’s wealth. From his first position in the Treasury Department, though, he emerged as the central mover in revolutionizing the mortgage structure of the private home market in the United States.
After FDR appointed him to head the Federal Reserve, Eccles drafted legislation that restructured that institution as well. Throughout the remainder of the New Deal, he was the most powerful advocate of what came to be called “Keynesian Policy,” which involved direct federal stimulus of the economy. Presenting the first comprehensive and independent analysis of Eccles’s influential career, Jumping the Abyss wrestles with economic issues that remain relevant today.
Finalist for the Utah State Historical Society Best Book Award.
This book weighs alternative conceptions of the equal opportunity principle through an empirical and ethical exploration of the Federal law that directs local school districts to award special educational opportunities to students who are classified as learning disabled (LD). Mark Kelman and Gillian Lester consider the degree to which students with learning disabilities (rather than merely slow learners, the socially disadvantaged, or even the gifted) are entitled to benefits that might well prove advantageous to their classmates, such as extra time to complete an exam or expensive, individually tailored educational programs.
They examine the vexing question of how we should distribute extra educational funds: should we give them to those who have fewer material resources to begin with, to those who might benefit more than others from extra resources, or should we simply strive to create greater equality of outcome? The book exposes a growing conflict between those who want to distribute scarce resources on an individual basis to children who are in need whatever the reason, and those who seek to eliminate group inequalities.
I had a little brother.
His name was Tiny Tim.
I put him in the bathtub
To teach him how to swim.
He drank all the water.
He ate all the soap.
He died last night
With a bubble in his throat.
Jump-rope rhymes, chanted to maintain the rhythm of the game, have other, equally entertaining uses:
This collection of over six hundred jump-rope rhymes, originally published in 1969, is an introduction into the world of children—their attitudes, their concerns, their humor. Like other children's folklore, the rhymes are both richly inventive and innocently derivative, ranging from on-the-spot improvisations to old standards like "Bluebells, cockleshells," with a generous sprinkling of borrowings from other play activities—nursery rhymes, counting-out rhymes, and taunts. Even adult attitudes of the time are appropriated, but expressed with the artless candor of the child:
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.
Catch Castro by the toe.
If he hollers make him say
"I surrender, U.S.A."
Though aware that children's play serves social and psychological functions, folklorists had long neglected analytical study of children's lore because primary data was not available in organized form. Roger Abraham's Dictionary has provided such a bibliographical tool for one category of children's lore and a model for future compendia in other areas. The alphabetically arranged rhymes are accompanied by notes on sources, provenience, variants, and connection with other play activities.
Timeless photos offer a rare portrait of the jubilant, vibrant, vital, nearly hidden, and now all-but-vanished world of small-town Black rodeos.
Long before Americans began to officially commemorate Juneteenth, in the heat of East Texas, saddles were being cinched, buckles shined, and lassoes adjusted for a day on the Black rodeo circuit in honor of the holiday. In the late 1970s, as they had been doing for generations, Black communities across the region held local rodeos for the talented cowboys and cowgirls who were segregated from the mainstream circuit. It was to these vibrant community events that bestselling Texas writer Sarah Bird, then a young photojournalist, found herself drawn.
In Juneteenth Rodeo, Bird’s lens celebrates a world that was undervalued at the time, capturing everything, from the moment the pit master fired up his smoker, through the death-defying rides, to the last celebratory dance at a nearby honky-tonk. Essays by Bird and sports historian Demetrius Pearson reclaim the crucial role of Black Americans in the Western US and show modern rodeo riders—who still compete on today’s circuit—as “descendants” in a more than two-hundred-year lineage of Black cowboys. A gorgeous tribute to the ropers and riders—legends like Willie Thomas, Myrtis Dightman, Rufus Green, Bailey’s Prairie Kid, Archie Wycoff, and Calvin Greeley—as well as the secretaries, judges, and pick-up men and even the audience members who were as much family as fans, Juneteenth Rodeo ultimately seeks to put Black cowboys and cowgirls where they have always belonged: in the center of the frame.
Soto Laveaga traces the political, economic, and scientific development of the global barbasco industry from its emergence in the 1940s, through its appropriation by a populist Mexican state in 1970, to its obsolescence in the mid-1990s. She focuses primarily on the rural southern region of Tuxtepec, Oaxaca, where the yam grew most freely and where scientists relied on local, indigenous knowledge to cultivate and harvest the plant. Rural Mexicans, at first unaware of the pharmaceutical and financial value of barbasco, later acquired and deployed scientific knowledge to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies, lobby the Mexican government, and ultimately transform how urban Mexicans perceived them. By illuminating how the yam made its way from the jungles of Mexico, to domestic and foreign scientific laboratories where it was transformed into pills, to the medicine cabinets of millions of women across the globe, Jungle Laboratories urges us to recognize the ways that Mexican peasants attained social and political legitimacy in the twentieth century, and positions Latin America as a major producer of scientific knowledge.
The Selva Maya (Jungle of the Maya) is one of the world's most magical yet least appreciated places—an enormous tropical forest that encompasses much of Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. At 9,000,000 acres, it is the largest contiguous tropical forest north of the Amazon in the Western Hemisphere. Within its borders, the Selva Maya provides habitat for an astonishing diversity of plants and animals—more than 500 species of birds alone. The forest also contains the fascinating ruins of ancient Maya cities, which attract visitors and researchers from all over the globe.
Jungle of the Maya presents a stunning photographic portrait of this irreplaceable natural treasure. Nature photographers Douglas Goodell and Jerry Barrack capture the living wonders of the jungle—jaguars and other cats; spider and howler monkeys; hummingbirds and butterflies; and snakes, amphibians, and insects—as well as the region's hallmark Maya sites, including Tikal, Chichen Itza, Uxmal, and Tulum. Environmental writer Jim Wright invitingly describes the Selva Maya's natural and human history, helping visitors and residents appreciate the riches to be found in the forest and the need to protect and preserve them for generations to come.
Because human activities are encroaching more and more on the Mayan forest, Jungle of the Maya is a beautiful book with a timely message. As renowned naturalist Archie Carr III sums it up in his foreword, "Today, the Selva Maya is at risk again. As modern beings, can we manage the forest better than we believe the ancient Maya did? We should. We have the archaeological record to draw from. We have modern science. And we still have inspiration whispered to us by spirits in the great plazas of Tikal and beyond. Turn the pages, and witness."
This engrossing new novel by acclaimed author Susan Lang continues the saga of Ruth Farley, the fiercely independent young woman who was the protagonist of Small Rocks Rising, published by the University of Nevada Press in 2002. Ruth is still on her homestead at the end of a rugged canyon in California’s Mojave Desert, still struggling to survive on her own and to recover from a brutal rape and the murder of her lover. Now she must also face the responsibility of motherhood. The ensuing story expands Ruth’s world to encompass the panorama of Depression-era Southern California—miners and ranchers hanging on until times are better; Indians trying to preserve their ancient culture and identity; Okies, vagrants, and breadlines; the wealth and glitter of the movie industry; and narrow-minded small-town gossips. Ruth’s life also expands as she adjusts to motherhood, trying to maintain her autonomy and isolation and trying to preserve the tenuous web that links her to the seductive ruthlessness of the desert and to its ancient people and their wisdom. Ruth is one of the most engaging characters in recent fiction, complex and contradictory, stubborn and vulnerable, passionately in love with her austere desert home. Lang tells her story, the saga of a fully modern woman seeking her own identity and destiny against the turbulent, colorful setting of the rapidly changing twentieth-century West.
In this, the first thoroughly researched scholarly biography of British actor Junius Brutus Booth, Stephen M. Archer reveals Booth to have been an artist of considerable range and a man of sensitivity and intellect. Archer provides a clear account of Booth’s professional and personal life and places him in relationship to his contemporaries, particularly Edmund Kean and William Charles Macready.
When Jupiter was first published in August, 1976, editor T. Gehrels wrote, "we may never do a better book."
Summarizing the research and data following the first flyby of Jupiter in December 1973, this work brings together the knowledge of the best scientists in the fields at the time of it's publication. The work covers the origin of Jupiter, origin and structure of the satellites, models of Jupiter, comparison of those models, and much more.
READERS
Browse our collection.
PUBLISHERS
See BiblioVault's publisher services.
STUDENT SERVICES
Files for college accessibility offices.
UChicago Accessibility Resources
home | accessibility | search | about | contact us
BiblioVault ® 2001 - 2024
The University of Chicago Press