Given his background, President Truman was an unlikely champion of civil rights. Where he grew up—the border state of Missouri—segregation was accepted and largely unquestioned. Both his maternal and paternal grandparents had owned slaves, and his mother, victimized by Yankee forces, railed against Abraham Lincoln for the remainder of her ninety-four years. When Truman assumed the presidency on April 12, 1945, Michael R. Gardner points out, Washington, DC, in many ways resembled Cape Town, South Africa, under apartheid rule circa 1985.

Truman’s background notwithstanding, Gardner shows that it was Harry Truman—not Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, or John F. Kennedy—who energized the modern civil rights movement, a movement that basically had stalled since Abraham Lincoln had freed the slaves. Gardner recounts Truman’s public and private actions regarding black Americans. He analyzes speeches, private conversations with colleagues, the executive orders that shattered federal segregation policies, and the appointments of like-minded civil rights activists to important positions. Among those appointments was the first black federal judge in the continental United States.

One of Gardner’s essential and provocative points is that the Frederick Moore Vinson Supreme Court—a court significantly shaped by Truman—provided the legal basis for the nationwide integration that Truman could not get through the Congress. Challenging the myth that the civil rights movement began with Brown v. Board of Education under Chief Justice Earl Warren, Gardner contends that the life-altering civil rights rulings by the Vinson Court provided the necessary legal framework for the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision.

Gardner characterizes Truman’s evolution from a man who grew up in a racist household into a president willing to put his political career at mortal risk by actively supporting the interests of black Americans.

Assessing rhetorical principles of contemporary health issues

Hypochondriacs are vulnerable to media hype, anorexics are susceptible to public scrutiny, and mi­graine sufferers are tainted with the history of the “migraine personality,” maintains rhetorical theorist Judy Z. Segal. All are influenced by the power of per­suasion.

Health and the Rhetoric of Medicine explores per­sistent health conditions that resist conventional medical solutions. Using a range of rhetorical prin­ciples, Segal analyzes how patients and their illnesses are formed within the physician/patient relationship. The intractable problem of a patient’s rejection of a doctor’s advice, says Segal, can be considered a rhe­torical failure—a failure of persuasion.

Examining the discourse of medicine through case studies, applications, and analyses, Segal illus­trates how illnesses are described in ways that limit

patients’ choices and satisfaction. She also illuminates psychiatric conditions, infectious diseases, genetic testing, and cosmetic surgeries through the lens of rhetorical theory.

Health and the Rhetoric of Medicine bridges criti­cal analysis for scholarly, professional, and lay audi­ences. Segal highlights the persuasive element in di­agnosis, health policy, illness experience, and illness narratives. She also addresses questions of direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs, the role of health information in creating the “worried well” and problems of trust and expertise in physician/patient relationships. A useful resource for critical common sense in everyday life, the text provides an effective examination of a society increasingly influ­enced by the rhetoric of health and medicine.

In arriving at the heart of Buddhist philosophy, Nolan Pliny Jacobson attempts to eliminate some of the confusion in the West (and perhaps in the East as well) concerning the Buddhist view of what is concrete and ultimately real in the world.

            Jacobson presents Nāgārjuna, the Plato of the Buddhist tradition, as the major exemplar of the Buddhist expression of life. In his comparison of Buddhism and Western theology, Jacobson demonstrates that some efforts in Western religious thought approach the Buddhist empirical stance.

Examining the Mexican American civil rights movement through the public rhetoric of a veteran activist

Héctor P. García: Everyday Rhetoric and Mexican American Civil Rights examines the transition of Mexican Americans from political and social marginalization to civic inclusion after World War II. Focusing on the public rhetoric of veteran rights activist and physician Dr. Héctor P. García, a Mexican immigrant who achieved unprecedented influence within the U.S. political system, author Michelle Hall Kells provides an important case study in the exercise of influence, the formation of civic identity, and the acquisition of social power among this underrepresented group.

As a major influence in national twentieth-century civil rights reform, García effectively operated between Anglo and Mexican American sociopolitical structures. The volume illustrates how García, a decorated World War II veteran and founder of the American GI Forum in Texas in 1948, successfully engendered a discourse that crossed geographical, political, and cultural borders, forming associations with the working poor as well as with prominent national figures such as John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Through his rhetoric and action, García publicly revealed the plight of Mexican Americans, crossing class, regional, and racial lines to improve socioeconomic conditions for his people.

Héctor P. García, which is enhanced by sixteen illustrations, contributes to rhetorical, cultural, and historical studies and offers new scholarship establishing García’s role on the national front, effectively tracing Garcia’s legacy of resistance, the process of achieving enfranchisement, and the role of racism in the evolution from social marginalization to national influence.

Sayre P. Sheldon chose the twentieth century for this collection of women's war writing because women's roles in war have changed dramatically in this century. The twentieth century has redefined the meaning of combat and expanded the territory of war to include women in larger numbers than ever before. When the technological advances of modern war began to target civilians, the home front became the front line. Women took an active part in war whether or not by choice, often by moving into occupations previously closed to them. Women covered wars for their newspapers, wrote war propaganda for their governments, published their wartime diaries, described fighting alongside men, and used wartime experience for their fiction and poetry.

Women writers also chose the right to imagine war, just as men for centuries had written about war without actually experiencing it. Women writers anthologized here include Anna Akhmatova, Vera Brittain, Gwendolyn Brooks, Willa Cather, Colette, Martha Gellhorn, H.D., Etty Hillesum, Käthe Kollwitz, Doris Lessing, Amy Lowell, Katherine Mansfield, Mary McCarthy, Toni Morrison, Dorothy Parker, Mary Lee Settle, Gertrude Stein, Huong Tram, Edith Wharton, Virginia Woolf, and Mitsuye Yamada.

The story of John A. Logan’s famed 31st Regiment Illinois Volunteers, told by three veterans, follows the regiment from the battles of Belmont, Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, Kenesaw Mountain, and Atlanta through the March to the Sea and into North Carolina. "Few regiments," notes historian John Y. Simon in the foreword, "fought longer or more fiercely, suffered more casualties, or won more victories."

Logan proved a valiant and valuable Union commander, yet when the Civil War first began, it was far from clear whether he would lead Union or Confederate troops. In dramatic fashion, however, he broke what Simon calls an "ominous silence ... interpreted by many as sympathy for the South." Speaking from a wagon platform in Marion, Illinois, Logan proclaimed: "[The] time has come when a man must be for or against his country." Logan accepted a commission from Illinois governor Richard Yates, recruited heavily in southern Illinois, and formed the 31st Regiment Illinois Volunteers.

The 31st became a prime component in Grant’s western campaigns, fighting for the first time at Belmont, Missouri. In February of 1862, the 31st foiled Confederate general Gideon J. Pillow’s dramatic escape from the Union siege at Fort Donelson. Although this is often listed as one of the proudest moments for the 31st, casualties ran high (fifty-eight killed), with Logan so severely wounded that at first he was reported dead. Logan’s valor at Fort Donelson won him promotion to brigadier general.

Once labeled the “lot that laugher built,” the Hal Roach Studios launched the comedic careers of such screen icons as Harold Lloyd, Our Gang, and Laurel and Hardy. With this stable of stars, the Roach enterprise operated for forty-six years on the fringes of the Hollywood studio system during a golden age of cinema and gained notoriety as a producer of short comedies, independent features, and weekly television series. Many of its productions are better remembered today than those by its larger contemporaries. In A History of the Hal Roach Studios, Richard Lewis Ward meticulously follows the timeline of the company’s existence from its humble inception in 1914 to its close in 1960 and, through both its obscure and famous productions, traces its resilience to larger trends in the entertainment business.

In the first few decades of the twentieth century, the motion picture industry was controlled by an elite handful of powerful firms that allowed very little room for new competition outside of their established cartel. The few independents that garnered some measure of success despite their outsider status usually did so by specializing in underserved or ignored niche markets. Here, Ward chronicles how the Roach Studios, at the mercy of exclusive distribution practices, managed to repeatedly redefine itself in order to survive for nearly a half-century in a cutthroat environment.

Hal Roach’s tactic was to nurture talent rather than exhaust it, and his star players spent the prime of their careers shooting productions on his lot. Even during periods of decline or misdirection, the Roach Studios turned out genuinely original material, such as the screwball classic Topper (1937), the brutally frank Of Mice and Men (1940), and the silent experiment One Million B.C. (1940). Ward’s exploration yields insight into the production and marketing strategies of an organization on the periphery of the theatrical film industry and calls attention to the interconnected nature of the studio system during the classic era. The volume also looks to the early days of television when the prolific Roach Studios embraced the new medium to become, for a time, the premier telefilm producer.

Aided by a comprehensive filmography and twenty-seven illustrations, A History of the Hal Roach Studios recounts an overlooked chapter in American cinema, not only detailing the business operations of Roach’s productions but also exposing the intricate workings of Hollywood’s rivalrous moviemaking establishment.

When the Civil War erupted in April 1861, many German immigrants in Illinois rushed to enlist in the Union Army. Volunteers from Illinois towns in St. Clair County—Belleville, Millstadt, Mascoutah, Lebanon, and others—marched to Springfield under the command of August Mersy, a veteran of the failed 1848 revolt in Baden, Germany.

Marion Morrison notes that when the German immigrants reached Springfield, August Mersy was rejected as commander because of his limited facility with English. Replaced by Colonel Eleazer A. Paine, an Ohioan and West Point graduate, Lieutenant Colonel Mersy fell to second in command of the Ninth Illinois Infantry Volunteers. Within a few months, however, Paine received a promotion to general that left Mersy in charge of the "Bloody Ninth."

Once Grant began his Tennessee River campaign, the Ninth found itself in the thick of battle, bearing the brunt of the Confederate attempt at Fort Donelson to break Grant’s siege lines. Less than two months later, the Ninth shored up sagging Union lines after the surprise Confederate attack at Shiloh Church, retreating only when their ammunition was gone.

Morrison’s account of the "Bloody Ninth" is one of the few histories written during the war.

In the process of providing the most extensive analysis of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window to date, John Fawell also dismantles many myths and clichés about Hitchcock, particularly in regard to his attitude toward women.

Although Rear Window masquerades quite successfully as a piece of light entertainment, Fawell demonstrates just how complex the film really is. It is a film in which Hitchcock, the consummate virtuoso, was in full command of his technique. One of Hitchcock’s favorite films, Rear Window offered the ideal venue for the great director to fully use the tricks and ideas he acquired over his previous three decades of filmmaking. Yet technique alone did not make this classic film great; one of Hitchcock’s most personal films, Rear Window is characterized by great depth of feeling. It offers glimpses of a sensibility at odds with the image Hitchcock created for himself—that of the grand ghoul of cinema who mocks his audience with a slick and sadistic style.

Though Hitchcock is often labeled a misanthrope and misogynist, Fawell finds evidence in Rear Window of a sympathy for the loneliness that leads to voyeurism and crime, as well as an empathy for the film’s women. Fawell emphasizesa more feeling, humane spirit than either Hitchcock’s critics have granted him or Hitchcock himself admitted to, and does so in a manner of interest to film scholars and general readers alike.

William Notter’s stunning collection Holding Everything Down explores the everyday struggles, triumphs, and desires of rural Americans. With disarming humor and remarkable honesty, Notter delves into the most personal longings of those who inhabit America’s countrysides: places bound by secrets and ghosts, where joy is discovered in the most unlikely of locations, and even the land itself has a story to tell. These highly accessible poems traverse the world of weekend rodeos, lonely highways, and windswept battlefields; they follow the twin paths of addiction and obsession, and the trials of newfound sobriety. Connections are forged beneath weathered ceilings, and love can be found over a plate of barbecue. Also explored are the depths of humanity’s relationship with nature and freedom, be it the smell of freshly threshed wheat, the purple thunderheads of an approaching storm, or a sunset viewed from Mississippi’s highest peak.

From the muddy deltas of the deep South to the crags of the Big Horn Mountains, Notter’s deeply candid portraits transcend stereotypes to expose an often unseen side of Americana. Hairdresser or handyman, rodeo rider or rancher’s wife, each voice ultimately echoes with the most human of experiences, unveiling the common threads that bind us to our world and to each other.

In Hollywood Bloodshed, James Kendrick presents a fascinating look into the political and ideological instabilities of the 1980s as studied through the lens of cinema violence.

Kendrick uses in-depth case studies to reveal how dramatic changes in the film industry and its treatment of cinematic bloodshed during the Reagan era reflected shifting social tides as Hollywood struggled to find a balance between the lucrative necessity of screen violence and the rising surge of conservatism.

As public opinion shifted toward the right and increasing emphasis was placed on issues such as higher military spending, family values, and “money culture,” film executives were faced with an epic dilemma: the violent aspects of cinema that had been the studios’ bread and butter were now almost universally rejected by mainstream audiences. Far from eliminating screen bloodshed altogether, studios found new ways of packaging violence that would allow them to continue to attract audiences without risking public outcry, ushering in a period of major transition in the film industry. Studios began to shy away from the revolutionary directors of the 1970s—many of whom had risen to fame through ideologically challenging films characterized by a more disturbing brand of violence—while simultaneously clearing the way for a new era in film. The 1980s would see the ascent of entertainment conglomerates and powerful producers and the meteoric rise of the blockbuster—a film with no less violence than its earlier counterparts, but with action-oriented thrills rather than more troubling images of brutality.

Kendrick analyzes these and other radical cinematic changes born of the conservative social climate of the 1980s, including the disavowal of horror films in the effort to present a more acceptable public image; the creation of the PG-13 rating to designate the gray area of movie violence between PG and R ratings; and the complexity of marketing the violence of war movies for audience pleasure. The result is a riveting study of an often overlooked, yet nevertheless fascinating time in cinema history. While many volumes have focused on the violent films of the New American Cinema directors of the 1970s or the rise of icons such as Woo, Tarantino, and Rodriguez in the 1990s, Kendrick’s Hollywood Bloodshed bridges a major gap in film studies.This comprehensive volume offers much-needed perspective on a decade that altered the history of Hollywood—and American culture—forever.

Inga Karetnikova’s method is that of the art teacher: she asks students to study great works in detail, to analyze them, and then to create their own. She stresses that her examination is "interested only in how the scripts are written and what makes them work, not in a cultural or scholarly examination of them." Karetnikova analyzes eight screenplays—TheGodfather, Rashomon, La Strada, Bicycle Thief, Nosferatu, The Servant, Viridiana, Notorious—anda novel written in screenplay form, Kiss of the Spider Woman. Each serves as an example of a particular aspect of screenplay writing: composing scripts, developing characters, constructing suspense, adapting literature to cinematic space and time, and weaving details and motifs within a script.

Karetnikova urges film students to work on their own screenplays while studying her book, reading the suggested scripts and viewing the films based on them to get the most from her method. She provides a series of exercises for each chapter to help students master the skills of composing and writing film treatments, developing screen stories and their characters, organizing scenes, and writing dialogue. Each of the exercises has worked successfully in her own screenplay-writing classes.

Far from the glittering lights of Broadway, in a city known more for its horse racing than its artistic endeavors, an annual festival in Louisville, Kentucky, has transformed the landscape of the American theater. The Actors Theatre of Louisville—the Tony Award–winning state theater of Kentucky—in 1976 successfully created what became the nation's most respected new-play festival, the Humana Festival of New American Plays.

The Humana Festival: The History of New Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville examines the success of the festival and theater’s Pulitzer Prize–winning productions that for decades have reflected new-play trends in regional theaters and on Broadway—the result of the calculated decisions, dogged determination, and good luck of its producing director, Jon Jory.

The volume details how Actors Theatre of Louisville was established, why the Humana Festival became successful in a short time, and how the event’s success has been maintained by the Louisville venue that has drawn theater critics from around the world for more than thirty years.

Author Jeffrey Ullom charts the theater’s early struggles to survive, the battles between troupe leaders, and the desperate measures to secure financial support from the Louisville community. He examines how Jory established and expanded the festival to garner extraordinary local support, attract international attention, and entice preeminent American playwrights to premier their works in the Kentucky city.

In The Humana Festival, Ullom provides a broad view of new-play development within artistic, administrative, and financial contexts. He analyzes the relationship between Broadway and regional theaters, outlining how the Humana Festival has changed the process of new-play development and even Broadway’s approach to discovering new work, and also highlights the struggles facing regional theaters across the country as they strive to balance artistic ingenuity and economic viability.

Offering a rare look at the annual event, The Humana Festival provides the first insider’s view of the extraordinary efforts that produced the nation’s most successful new-play festival.