For the first time, this book presents the distinguished, prolific, and highly experimental writer Juan Felipe Herrera. This wide-ranging collection of essays by leading experts offers critical approaches on Herrera, who transcends ethnic and mainstream poetics. It expertly demonstrates Herrera’s versatility, resourcefulness, innovations, and infinite creativity.

As a poet Herrera has had an enormous impact within and beyond Chicano poetics. He embodies much of the advancements and innovations found in American and Latin American poetry from the early l970s to the present. His writings have no limits or boundaries, indulging in the quotidian as well as the overarching topics of his era at different periods of his life. Both Herrera and his work are far from being unidimensional. His poetics are eclectic, incessantly diverse, transnational, unorthodox, and distinctive.

Reading Herrera is an act of having to rearrange your perceptions about things, events, historical or intra-historical happenings, and people. The essays in this work delve deeply into Juan Felipe Herrera’s oeuvre and provide critical perspectives on his body of work. They include discussion of Chicanx indigeneity, social justice, environmental imaginaries, Herrera’s knack for challenging theory and poetics, transborder experiences, transgeneric constructions, and children’s and young adult literature.

This book includes an extensive interview with the poet and a voluminous bibliography on everything by, about, and on the author. The chapters in this book offer a deep dive into the life and work of an internationally beloved poet who, along with serving as the poet laureate of California and the U.S. poet laureate, creates work that fosters a deep understanding of and appreciation for people’s humanity.

Contributors
Trevor Boffone
Marina Bernardo-Flórez
Manuel de Jesús Hernández-G.
Whitney DeVos
Michael Dowdy
Osiris Aníbal Gómez
Carmen González Ramos
Cristina Herrera
María Herrera-Sobek
Francisco A. Lomelí
Tom Lutz
Manuel M. Martín-Rodríguez
Marzia Milazzo
Maria Antònia Oliver-Rotger
Rafael Pérez-Torres
Renato Rosaldo
Donaldo W. Urioste
Luis Alberto Urrea
Santiago Vaquera-Vásquez

Juanita la Larga (1896), the third of Juan Valera's eponymous novels with a female protagonist, unfolds in a small town in nineteenth-century Spain and tells the story of a young girl's romance with a wealthy widower many years her senior.

Juárez was Warner Brothers' cinematic attempt to answer the major international question of the 1930s: would democracy or dictatorship prevail? Eager to further the foreign policy objectives of its friend Franklin Delano Roosevelt and equally willing to add to its prestigious and profitable biography series, the stuido set a record high budget and assembled special film stock, extensive scholarly research, a loose time schedule, a renowned director, and a stellar cast that included Paul Muni, Brian Aherne, and Bette Davis. The film was meant to be an ideologically clear-cut statement against fascism. The ways in which this artistic propaganda backfired make Juárez a significant historical document for students of film, Latin American history, and U.S. foreign relations.

The embodiment of a myth—Benito Juarez
 
Like many capitals the city of Mexico is a place of monuments-large monuments, small, ancient monuments, and new, representational monuments, and allegorical monuments—each bearing a message from the past. Among them is the Hemiciclo. It stands in a spacious, old, beautiful park, the Alameda Central, where the young and old of the city still promenade on Sundays and holidays as people do in the plazas throughout the country and, indeed, as people do in many parts of the world. Amid green trees and a great variety of flowers and shrubs and flanked by a semicircle of twelve doric columns of white Carrara marble stands the central pedestal of the Hemiciclo supporting the statues of three figures. One statue represents a former president of the republic, Benito Juarez, who appears solemn and grim as a Roman proconsul administering justice. Juarez the Lawgiver is seated, and surrounding him are two allegorical figures, also of marble, one representing Glory, who is placing a crown on Juarez’s head, and the other, the Republic, who stands behind, resting her sword on the ground to signify the end of a gigantic struggle. The letters of the pedestal read: “Al Benemerito Benito Juarez. La Patria.” Many years have passed since 1910, when the Mexican government built and dedicated the Hemiciclo after a design by the architect Guillermo Heredia.
 
Like many other such monuments it is the embodiment of a myth. In life Juarez offered little to the mythologizers-he was never able to boast a military career, he often impressed people as reserved or even impassive. he stood a little over five feet; with small hands and feet and dark staring eyes, a coppery complexion that helped disguise a large scar across his face, of Zapotec Indian parentage, he was no striking figure. He did, however, lead Mexican liberals in the I 850s and 1860s in their titanic struggle against formidable opposition, both foreign and domestic, and in the years since his death his worshipers have gathered at the Hemiciclo, at his tomb, or in many other places in Mexico sacred to his memory, usually on anniversaries of his birth or death. For them Juarez is, in agreement with the golden inscription on the central pedestal of the Hemiciclo, “Benemerito de la Patria” or even “Benemerito de las Americas.”
 
Development of a Juarez myth has had all the classic characteristics of myths and mythmaking, especially the subjective view or image of a reality, whether it be of an historical figure, as in the case of Juarez, an event, an institution, or even a geographical region. Image or meaning ascribed to what is assumed to be a reality constitutes one of the main elements of myth and when manipulated to promote a cause assumes a reality of its own. The apotheosis of Juarez projected a subjective view or image of the historical reality. In all myths, to be sure, the assumed reality is a feature useful to an individual or a group.
 

The Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E. was a watershed event in the history of Judah, the end of the monarchy and the beginning of the exilic period, during which many of the biblical texts were probably written. The conquest left clear archaeological marks on many sites in Judah, including Jerusalem, and the Bible records it as a traumatic event for the population. Less clear is the situation in Judah following the conquest, that is, in the sixth century, a period with archaeological remains the nature and significance of which are disputed. The traditional view is that the land was decimated and the population devastated. In the last two decades, archaeologists arguing that the land was not empty and that the exile had little impact on Judah’s rural sector have challenged this view. This volume examines the archaeological reality of Judah in the sixth century in order to shed new light on the debate. By expanding research into new avenues and examining new data, as well as by applying new methods to older data, the author arrives at fresh insights that support the traditional view of sixth-century Judah as a land whose population, both urban and rural, was devastated and whose recovery took centuries.

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.

Jewish presence in Malabar (also known as Kerala) is attested since the ninth century in various sources and diverse languages. Malabar Jewry emerged out of the medieval Indian Ocean maritime trade networks and in the context of intense inter-cultural contacts between West and South Asia. This book ventures to contextualize Malabar Jewish history in long-distance trade networks and their transition from the medieval Arab maritime trade (900s-1500s).

In this volume Professor Moore presents a series of Notes supplementary to the text of his two volumes on Judaism published in 1927. Some of the entries consist of emendations of the text; others summarize the views of scholars who differ from the author on various disputed points. The list of “longer notes and discussion” includes such topics as “Great Synagogue,” “Chronology of the Post-Exilic Period,” “Continuity of Normative Judaism,” “Sanhedrin,” “Paul," “Ground of Obligation in Revealed Religion.”

In these volumes George Moore has aimed at presenting Judaism as it was in the centuries during which it assumed definitive form, according to the tradition it has always held authentic. The Introduction sketches the external and internal history of those centuries, so far as that history affected religion, and summarizes the sources on which the account is based. In the chapters on Revealed Religion he explains the basic principles of Judaism and discusses the methods of its application. On those chapters as a logical base, he erects a superstructure made up of illuminating studies of the Idea of God, the Nature of Man and his Relation to God, the Observances of Religion, Morals, Piety, and the Hereafter. Moore, universally known as a distinguished scholar in these subjects, has spent ten years in the composition of his book, which contains the exhaustive information and ripe conclusions resulting from more than thirty years of wide reading and concentrated thought. Primarily for the scholars who have been impatiently awaiting it, the book is arranged so logically, written so simply and clearly, and is so intrinsically arresting in its subject-matter that no thoughtful reader can fail to be deeply interested by it.

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:

• Part one dedicating to reconstructing Judean history from the death of Alexander to the reign of King Herod
• Part two examining the effects of Roman domination on Judean society
• Maps, illustrations, and appendices

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.

Social scientists have convincingly documented soaring levels of political, legal, economic, and social inequality in the United States. Missing from this picture of rampant inequality, however, is any attention to the significant role of state law and courts in establishing policies that either ameliorate or exacerbate inequality. In Judging Inequality, political scientists James L. Gibson and Michael J. Nelson demonstrate the influential role of the fifty state supreme courts in shaping the widespread inequalities that define America today, focusing on court-made public policy on issues ranging from educational equity and adequacy to LGBT rights to access to justice to worker’s rights. 
 
Drawing on an analysis of an original database of nearly 6,000 decisions made by over 900 judges on 50 state supreme courts over a quarter century, Judging Inequality documents two ways that state high courts have crafted policies relevant to inequality: through substantive policy decisions that fail to advance equality and by rulings favoring more privileged litigants (typically known as “upperdogs”). The authors discover that whether court-sanctioned policies lead to greater or lesser inequality depends on the ideologies of the justices serving on these high benches, the policy preferences of their constituents (the people of their state), and the institutional structures that determine who becomes a judge as well as who decides whether those individuals remain in office. 
 
Gibson and Nelson decisively reject the conventional theory that state supreme courts tend to protect underdog litigants from the wrath of majorities. Instead, the authors demonstrate that the ideological compositions of state supreme courts most often mirror the dominant political coalition in their state at a given point in time. As a result, state supreme courts are unlikely to stand as an independent force against the rise of inequality in the United States, instead making decisions compatible with the preferences of political elites already in power. At least at the state high court level, the myth of judicial independence truly is a myth. 
 
Judging Inequality offers a comprehensive examination of the powerful role that state supreme courts play in shaping public policies pertinent to inequality. This volume is a landmark contribution to scholarly work on the intersection of American jurisprudence and inequality, one that essentially rewrites the “conventional wisdom” on the role of courts in America’s democracy. 
 

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.

How should judges, in America and elsewhere, interpret statutes and the Constitution? Previous work on these fundamental questions has typically started from abstract views about the nature of democracy or constitutionalism, or the nature of legal language, or the essence of the rule of law. From these conceptual premises, theorists typically deduce an ambitious role for judges, particularly in striking down statutes on constitutional grounds. In this book, Adrian Vermeule breaks new ground by rejecting both the conceptual approach and the judge-centered conclusions of older theorists. Vermeule shows that any approach to legal interpretation rests on institutional and empirical premises about the capacities of judges and the systemic effects of their rulings. Drawing upon a range of social science tools from political science, economics, decision theory, and other disciplines, he argues that legal interpretation is above all an exercise in decisionmaking under severe empirical uncertainty. In view of their limited information and competence, judges should adopt a restrictive, unambitious set of tools for interpreting statutory and constitutional provisions, deferring to administrative agencies where statutes are unclear and deferring to legislatures where constitutional language is unclear or states general aspirations.

Christopher Dawson wrote The Judgment of the Nations in 1942, in the midst of the horrors of World War II.

The long-delayed recognition of the Russian Soviets, which has provided courts throughout the world with a host of perplexing questions as to the rights and immunities of unrecognized powers and the effect of their laws and decrees, is one of the many specific problems discussed by Mr Jaffe in this important volume. As a basis, he examines the relations between the judiciary and the executive, and indicates the extent to which considerations of extra-national policy have already penetrated judicial decision. In developing a theory of the function of recognition, he considers the theories of the past and the present, the history out of which they grew, their relation to the basic concepts of international law and in particular to the theory of external sovereignty, and their truth and value in terms of current practice and current needs.

This volume is a presentation of the doctrinal and practical aspects of the problem of judicial control over administrative boards and commissions. For the purpose of example and to present a stereoscopic view of the development of administrative justice in the United States, the two preeminent and independent commissions of the Federal government charged with the regulation of trade and transportation are treated in some detail. Separate chapters are devoted to the Interstate Commerce Commission from its inception in 1889 and to the Federal Trade Commission from its beginnings in 1914, with particular reference to the relations of these commissions to the courts during the decade from 1920 to 1930 in order to disclose the nature of the judicial control and the measure of authority allowed the administrative bodies.

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.

A study of the Supreme Court in the wake of the Dred Scott decision.

This book investigates the political and public standing of the Supreme Court following the Dred Scott decision. Arguing against interpretations by previous historians, Kutler asserts instead that the "Chase Court" was neither enfeebled by the decision itself, nor by congressional Republicans during reconstruction. Instead, Kutler suggests that during reconstruction, the Court was characterized by forcefulness and judicious restraint rather than timidity and cowardice, holding a creative and determining role rather than abdicating its rightful powers. This volume assembles a series of essays by Kutler arguing for this characterization. Provocative and persuasive at turns, this collection of essays provides a bold and innovative reinterpretation of the Supreme Court after the Civil War.

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.

In Judicial Territory, Shaina Potts reveals how the American empire has benefited from the post-World War II expansion of United States judicial authority over the economic decisions of postcolonial governments. Introducing the term “judicial territory” to refer to the increasingly transnational space over which US courts wield authority, Potts argues that law is an essential tool for US geopolitical and economic interests. Through close examination of cases involving private US companies, on the one hand, and foreign state-owned enterprises, nationalizations, and sovereign debt, on the other, she shows that technical changes relating to the treatment of foreign sovereigns in domestic US law allowed the United States to extend its purview over global financial and economic relations, including many economic decisions of foreign governments. Throughout, Potts argues, US law has not become divorced from territoriality but instead actively remapped it; it has not merely responded to globalization, but actively produced it—making the whole world part of US economic space in the process.

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.

In Juggling, Stewart Lawrence Sinclair explores the four-thousand-year history and practice of juggling as seen through his life as a juggler. Sinclair—who learned to juggle as a child and paid his way through college by busking—shares his experiences of taking up juggling after an episode of suicidal ideation, his time juggling on the streets, and ultimately finding comfort in juggling during the COVID-19 pandemic. In many ways, this is a book about loss and recovery. From his own juggling story to clowns braving military checkpoints in Bosnia and Rwanda to perform in refugee camps to contemporary avant-garde performances, Sinclair shows how the universal language of juggling provides joy as well as a respite from difficulties during hard times.

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!