The origins of Judeo-Christian creation accounts: An complete, authoritative translation of all the extant cuneiform tablets of Babylonian creation stories

The Babylonian Genesis offers, in one compact, accessible volume, a complete translation of all the published cuneiform tablets of the various Babylonian creation stories, of both the Semitic Babylonian and the Sumerian material. Each creation account is preceded by a brief introduction from renowned scholar and translator Alexander Heidel dealing with the age and provenance of the tablets, the aim and purpose of the story, and everything else that a reader of any level  of knowledge needs to understand these stories in their context. Also included is a translation and discussion of two Babylonian creation versions written in Greek. The final chapter presents a detailed examination of the Babylonian creation accounts in their relation to our Old Testament literature.

The bodies are buried, but the stories are not. From the ornate tombs of Milwaukee beer barons to displaced Chippewa graves and miniscule family plots, Badger Boneyards: The Eternal Rest of the Story unearths the stories of Wisconsin. Football great John Heisman is buried here, as is the state's smallest man, a woman whose tombstone names her murderer, and the boy who would not tell a lie and paid the price.

 

Even in a graveyard, peace proves hard to come by: Wisconsin's Native American tribes have fought for undisturbed grounds and proper burial. A patch of Belgian graves now resides beneath a parking lot while the headstones cluster nearby, and the inhabitants of a Bayfield cemetery were unearthed by a raging flood. Sometimes the dead are recalled with only a first name, and sometimes no name at all. Following the clues in tips from readers, unusual epitaphs, and well-worn stones, Dennis McCann finds the melancholy, the humorous, the tragic, and the universal in Wisconsin's cities of the dead.

The life of I. J. 'Izzi' Wagner mirrors the development of Salt Lake City during the twentieth century—from poverty and obscurity to affluence and prominence. Wagner was born in poverty, but through hard work, wise management, and good luck, he built a fortune. He also changed the city for the better—leading the movement to eliminate overhead signs on Main Street, opening the southwest quadrant to controlled industrial development, ridding the city center of railroad tracks, funding the Rose Wagner Center for Performing Arts, and using his substantial influence to promote tolerance.

His sense of humor was legendary. His tenacity in pursuit of goals was unwavering. His grasp of past, present, and future opportunities was profound. Bags to Riches shows the personal side of an 'outsider' who became an 'insider' through congeniality, good humor, and integrity.

In a survey conducted by Washingtonian magazine, Barney Frank was rated the smartest, funniest, and most eloquent member of Congress. A mainstay in the House of Representatives since 1981, he has come to be known for his talent as a legislator, his zeal for verbal combat, his imposing intellect, and a quick wit that both disarms and entertains other lawmakers. Most recently, as chair of the Financial Services Committee, he was instrumental in crafting a compromise bill to stem the tide of home mortgage foreclosures, as well as the subsequent $700 billion "rescue plan."

Based on interviews with over 150 people, including more than thirty hours with Frank himself, this biography reconstructs for the first time his life and career, from his working-class childhood in Bayonne, New Jersey, to his years at Harvard and in Boston politics, through his rise to national prominence. Stuart Weisberg captures Frank in all his quirkiness, irreverence, and complexity. He also examines his less appealing side—his gruff exterior, his legendary impatience, his aversion to wasting time. Weisberg reveals the pressure Frank has felt as the most prominent openly gay politician in the United States, one whose career was nearly derailed by a highly publicized sex scandal involving a male prostitute.

Above all, this book shows Frank to be a superb legislator—a pragmatic politician who has dedicated his career to pursuing an unabashedly liberal agenda and whose depth of intellect and sense of humor have made him one of the most influential and colorful figures in Washington.

In 1955 Arthur Moffatt led an expedition consisting of young college students and recent graduates to the Inuit lands of Nunavut, Canada, to follow the path of the 1893 Tyrrell expedition and to film and photograph the group’s progress. The expedition, a 900-mile epic journey across the Barren Lands of Arctic Canada, has stirred controversy and criticism for over fifty years. The trip has been variously described as “the pioneering venture in modern recreational canoe travel” and as “an excellent example of how not to conduct a canoe trip.” Delays took their toll on the adventurers, exhausted by the seemingly endless paddling through unknown rivers and lakes, the trek across the windswept tundra, and torment by voracious insects. Threatened with diminishing food reserves and increasingly harsh weather, the members of the expedition were forced to travel with greater speed and less caution, and ultimately a fatal mistake was made. Two of the canoes capsized, dumping four men into the frigid waters. Moffatt, the leader, died of exposure. It took the survivors ten days of arduous travel with minimum food and equipment to reach the safety of the Hudson’s Bay Company post. Barren Grounds features passages from the journals of two young Moffatt party members and excerpts about the 1893 expedition of Joseph Burr Tyrrell, along with entries from the journal of Art Moffatt himself. Part cautionary tale, part nail-biting adventure, the book will appeal to outdoorsmen and armchair adventurers alike.

Under the auspices of the 1938 Flood Control Act, the U.S. Corps of Engineers began to pursue an aggressive dam-building campaign. A grateful public generally lauded their efforts, but when they turned their attention to Arkansas’s Buffalo River, the vocal opposition their proposed projects generated dumbfounded them. Never before had anyone challenged the Corps’s assumption that damming a river was an improvement. Led by Neil Compton, a physician in Bentonville, Arkansas, a group of area conservationists formed the Ozark Society to join the battle for the Buffalo. This book is the account of this decade-long struggle that drew in such political figures as supreme court justice William O. Douglas, Senator J. William Fulbright, and Governor Orval Faubus. The battle finally ended in 1972 with President Richard Nixon’s designation of the Buffalo as the first national river. Drawing on hundreds of personal letters, photographs, maps, newspaper articles, and reminiscences, Compton’s lively book details the trials, gains, setbacks, and ultimate triumph in one of the first major skirmishes between environmentalists and developers.

First published in 1966, Bayou Salado is an engaging look at the history of a high cool valley in the Rocky Mountains. Now known as South Park, Bayou Salado once attracted Ute and Arapaho hunters as well as European and American explorers and trappers. Virginia McConnell Simmons's colorful accounts of some of the valley's more notable residents - such as Father Dyer, the skiing Methodist minister-mailman, and Silver Heels, the dancer who lost her legendary beauty while tending to the ill during a small pox epidemic - bring the valley's storied past to life.

Sondra Jones traces the metamorphosis of the Ute people from a society of small, interrelated bands of mobile hunter-gatherers to sovereign, dependent nations—modern tribes who run extensive business enterprises and government services. Weaving together the history of all Ute groups—in Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico—the narrative describes their traditional culture, including the many facets that have continued to define them as a people. Jones emphasizes how the Utes adapted over four centuries and details events, conflicts, trade, and social interactions with non-Utes and non-Indians. Being and Becoming Ute examines the effects of boarding—and public—school education; colonial wars and commerce with Hispanic and American settlers; modern world wars and other international conflicts; battles over federally instigated termination, tribal identity, and membership; and the development of economic enterprises and political power. The book also explores the concerns of the modern Ute world, including social and medical issues, transformed religion, and the fight to maintain Ute identity in the twenty-first century.
 
Neither a portrait of a people frozen in a past time and place nor a tragedy in which vanishing Indians sank into oppressed oblivion, the history of the Ute people is dynamic and evolving. While it includes misfortune, injustice, and struggle, it reveals the adaptability and resilience of an American Indian people.

Winner of the American Bar Association's 1992 Silver Gavel Award "in recognition of an outstanding contribution to public understanding of the American system of law and justice."

"Mr. Sobol has produced a readable yet fully researched and detailed study of the operation of the bankruptcy and its effects upon all concerned—the women who were injured, the swarms of lawyers who represented parties in the bankruptcy, and the court which oversaw the bankruptcy in Richmond. . . . This book adds greatly to the current debate about how strong a managerial federal judge our system should have."—Paul D. Rheingold, New York Law Journal

"Bending the Law is polemical and relentless. It is also minutely researched, fluidly written, and persuasive."—Paul Reidinger, ABA Journal

"Bending the Law is a must read for bankruptcy practitioners, and for anyone else concerned about the use of bankruptcy law to deal with mass torts. Although its author is a civil rights lawyer, he details the subtle art of practicing bankruptcy law with a discerning eye, and is a gifted storyteller as well."—Joryn Jenkins, Federal Bar News and Journal

"This is an accessible history of the case by a veteran civil-rights lawyer."—Washington Post Book World

Sensitivity training, T-Groups, and encounter groups have become a way of life. Beyond Words traces the history of this movement, the background of its successes, its varieties, and its failures. Dr. Back's approach is neither one of wide-eyed admiration nor hostility. Instead, he has written a book that provides the first long, hard look at sensitivity training as a social phenomenon. From its fortuitous beginnings the movement is followed through its developments at Bethel, its growth across the country, its new centers in California, its spread to Europe. The novelty of this movement, an almost religious exercise based on the scientific ethos, is related to the peculiar conditions of the last quarter century. The movement has acquired its own mythos. Dr. Back examines the interplay of the conflicting aims of self-expression and change, and shows how these contradictory aims have affected the ramifications of the movement in theory, in management, in recreation, and in education. Results emerging from studies on effects of sensitivity training indicate a recurrent pattern of great immediate emphasis followed by little permanent beneficial effect. Finally, Beyond Words assesses the overall impact of the movement, its relation to science, its possible changes, and its portent as a symptom of the state of society. Dr. Back examines the interplay of the conflicting aims of self-expression and change, and shows how these contradictory aims have affected the ramifications of the movement in theory, in management, in recreation, and in education.

“The best all-around catcher in black baseball history”—Cumberland Posey, Owner of the Homestead Grays

National Baseball Hall of Fame catcher James Raleigh “Biz” Mackey’s professional career spanned nearly three decades in the Negro Leagues and elsewhere. He distinguished himself as a defensive catcher who also had an impressive batting average and later worked as a manager of the Newark Eagles and the Baltimore Elite Giants.

Using archival materials and interviews with former Negro League players, baseball historian Rich Westcott chronicles the catcher’s life and remarkable career in Biz Mackey, a Giant behind the Plate as well as providing an in-depth look at Philadelphia Negro League history. Westcott traces Mackey’s childhood in Texas as the son of sharecroppers to his success on the baseball diamond where he displayed extraordinary defensive skills and an exceptional ability to hit and to handle pitchers. Mackey spent one third of his career playing in Philadelphia, winning championships with the Hilldale Daisies and the Philadelphia Stars. Mackey also mentored famed catcher Roy Campanella and had an unlikely role in the story of baseball’s development in Japan.

A celebrated ballplayer before African Americans were permitted to join Major League Baseball, Biz Mackey ranks as one of the top catchers ever to play the game. With Biz Mackey, he finally gets the biography he deserves.

In the early twentieth century, Marcus Garvey sowed the seeds of a new black pride and determination. Attacked by the black intelligentsia and ridiculed by the white press, this Jamaican immigrant astonished all with his black nationalist rhetoric.  In just four years, he built the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), the largest and most powerful all-black organization the nation had ever seen.  With hundreds of branches, throughout the United States, the UNIA represented Garvey’s greatest accomplishment and, ironically, the source of his public disgrace.  Black Moses brings this controversial figure to life and recovers the significance of his life and work.

“Those who are interested in the revolutionary aspects of the twentieth century in America should not miss Cronon’s book. It makes exciting reading.”—The Nation

“A very readable, factual, and well-documented biography of Marcus Garvey.”—The Crisis, NAACP

“In a short, swiftly moving, penetrating biography, Mr. Cronon has made the first real attempt to narrate the Garvey story. From the Jamaican's traumatic race experiences on the West Indian island to dizzy success and inglorious failure on the mainland, the major outlines are here etched with sympathy, understanding, and insight.”—Mississippi Valley Historical Review (Now the Journal of American History).

“Good reading for all serious history students.”—Jet

“A vivid, detailed, and sound portrait of a man and his dreams.”—Political Science Quarterly

In a Segregated Military, the African American Armored Unit That Helped Patton Check the German Advance, Close the Rhine Ring, and Spearhead a New Postwar Army
Known primarily for being the first African American armored unit to see combat in World War II and as future baseball star Jackie Robinson’s onetime outfit, the 761st Tank Battalion was forged in a devil’s cauldron of heat and prejudice at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana. Here, most viewed the tankers as tokens in a racial experiment, rather than as fellow American soldiers who would actually be deployed to fight a common enemy. Led by a small cadre of white and black officers, the 761st trained to the pinnacle of its craft. The Black Panthers, as they soon were called, proved their battle prowess against other units bound for combat on the parched Texas training fields. For this, they earned a coveted assignment to fight under General George S. Patton and go head-to-head with the best of Hitler’s arsenal. Moving to the front in November 1944, trial by fire soon shook the unit to its core. Ambushed by a veteran German force, the 761st suffered heavy casualties in the confusion as they cut their way out of the trap. But the men rallied to overcome self-doubt and vindicate their losses. Quickly battle hardened, the tankers saw intense combat through November and when Germany launched its last-ditch offensive through the Ardennes in December, the 761st fought side-by-side with Patton’s Third Army. Moving swiftly, the unit helped check the German advance, cut resupply routes to the forces surrounding beleaguered Bastogne, and drove the enemy back, recapturing towns crucial to the final defeat of Germany.
In The Black Panthers: A Story of Race, War, and Courage—the 761st Tank Battalion in World War II, historian Gina M. DiNicolo tells the full and unvarnished history of this important American fighting force. Relying on extensive archival research, including documents that had not been consulted in previous accounts, and interviews with surviving soldiers and family members, the author describes the unit’s training, deployment, combat, and individuals, such as Sgt. Ruben Rivers, one of only seven African American men awarded the Medal of Honor for World War II heroism. The professionalism, dedication, and courage of the 761st and other non-white units made clear that the strength of the American army in the future lay with integration—one of the enduring accomplishments of these servicemen.

From 1877 to 1896, the popularity of bicycles increased exponentially, and Boston was in on it from the start. The Boston Bicycle Club was the first in the nation, and the city's cyclists formed the nucleus of a new national organization, the League of American Wheelmen. The sport was becoming a craze, and Massachusetts had the largest per capita membership in the league in the 1890s and the largest percentage of women members. Several prominent cycling magazines were published in Boston, making cycling a topic of press coverage and a growing cultural influence as well as a form of recreation.

Lorenz J. Finison explores the remarkable rise of Boston cycling through the lives of several participants, including Kittie Knox, a biracial twenty-year-old seamstress who challenged the color line; Mary Sargent Hopkins, a self-proclaimed expert on women's cycling and publisher of The Wheelwoman; and Abbot Bassett, a longtime secretary of the League of American Wheelman and a vocal cycling advocate for forty years. Finison shows how these riders and others interacted on the road and in their cycling clubhouses, often constrained by issues of race, class, religion, and gender. He reveals the challenges facing these riders, whether cycling for recreation or racing, in a time of segregation, increased immigration, and debates about the rights of women.

In this post–Arab Spring novel, Ahmad Tarawneh tells the story of conflicting loyalties between two Jordanian brothers, one who serves in the Jordanian national security division, and another who belongs to an extremist militant Islamic group. With boldness, clarity, and an insider’s eye, Tarawneh addresses the root causes and circumstances that lead a desperate young Jordanian to be recruited into a terrorist organization, tempted by the lure of glory purported by a skillful, self-serving sheikh. The novel depicts the positive and negative forces that influence the two brothers in their soul-searching quests for self-actualization that lead to more questions than answers—questions many Arab youth still ask today, while engulfed in their own raging struggles over tradition, religion, modernity, and secularism. Readers find themselves on an intimate journey into the minds and hearts of the protagonists to witness the tragedy and absurdity of this conflict and the magnitude of the human destruction it leaves behind.

This anthology highlights central values and traditions in Native American societies, exploring the ongoing struggles and survival power of Native American people today. The essays and stories by well-known writers provide an excellent introduction for general readers as well as high school and college students. The stories and historical events are drawn especially from the tribes of the Great Lakes region, such as the Ojibwa (Chippewa) of Wisconsin, and are part of a continuing, sustaining storytelling tradition.
    Starting with the opening selection, “The Circle of Stories,” which reaffirms the relationship of humans to all living things, the anthology emphasizes themes of connectedness and survival in essays on the environment, identity, community allegiance and treaty rights, marginalization and assimilation in American society, and conflict within the educational system. Several selections about Trickster tales introduce traditions of humor, irony, and imagination that have come to embody native survival, liberation, and continuance.
    The authors included in Buried Roots and Indestructible Seeds are Kim Blaeser, Joseph Bruchac, George Cornell, Fred Hoxie, James Oberly, Denise Sweet, Tom Vennum, and Gerald Vizenor.

Business Without Boundary was first published in 1954. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

The firm of General Mills is probably best known to millions of people as the maker of Gold Medal Flour and as the progenitor of that first lady of the kitchen and the airwaves, Betty Crocker. But, although its greatest fame is as a flour miller, the company engages in a host of other activities that attest to the foresight and creative thinking of its executives. In fact, the sky seems to be the only limit as the company extends its sights upward in Operation Skyhook, a United States navy research project for which General Mills makes and launches into the stratosphere giant plastic balloons.

James Gray relates not only the history of General Mills since its founding in 1928 but also the background of the major companies that merged to form the larger corporation: the Washburn Crosby Company of Minneapolis, the Sperry Company of San Francisco, the Kell group of Texas and Oklahoma mills, and the Larrowe Milling Company of Detroit.

Anyone interested in advertising and promotion will find fascinating the accounts of the early successes in radio advertising, including the first use of singing commercials and the phenomenal rise of Betty Crocker (voted the second best-known woman in America!) The scientific and technical research that is a cornerstone of the modern corporation is described in detail, as is the development of the products control method, a General Mills innovation now widely adopted in industry.

For those curious to understand how business expands, for those interested in a close-up of industrial leaders, for anyone who wants to sharpen his view of America at work, this is an important book.