Crossing Central Europe is a pioneering volume that focuses on the complex networks of transcultural interrelations in Central Europe from 1900 to 2000. Scholars from Canada, the United States, and Europe identify the motifs, topics, and ways of artistic creation that define this cross-cultural region. This interdisciplinary volume is divided into two historical periods and includes analyses of literature, film, music, architecture, and media. By focusing first on the interrelations in the nineteenth and early twentieth-century, the contributors reveal a complex trans-ethnic network at play that disseminated aesthetic ideals. This network continued to be a force of aesthetic influence leading into the twenty-first century despite globalization and the influence of mass media. Helga Mitterbauer and Carrie Smith-Prei have embarked on a study of the overlapping artistic influences that have outlasted both the National Socialist regime and the Cold War.

"Filled with delicious rodeo tidbits. Stratton's the perfect tour guide, a natural-born storyteller whose prose is as lean as a cowboy and as poetic as a sunset, rendered with a delight and wonder that are downright infectious."--"The Boston Globe" Rodeo has grown into an international, prime-time television sport. Steeped in tradition and Western spirit, it calls aspiring cowboys and cowgirls to its rough-and-tumble fame as they repeatedly risk their lives for eight seconds of triumph. In "Chasing the Rodeo," Kip Stratton takes us into the addictive core of rodeo, bull riding, and the circuit. Immersed in this world, he collides with the specter of his "rodeo bum" father, finding part of the cowboy dream that was his father's legacy. "Chasing the Rodeo" is a tribute to the famed characters of the old West and a riveting look at the superstars of the new. And best of all, it's one bucking, riveting, glorious ride.
"If you love the sound of the bell, the thud of hooves, and the sight of a twisting ton-and-a-half bovine, round up a copy of this book. "Chasing the Rodeo" is a mighty fine book for any cowpoke."--"St. Louis Post-Dispatch"
W. K. (Kip) Stratton is a native of the Southwest. His journalism has appeared in "GQ, Sports Illustrated, Outside, Southern Magazine," and the "Dallas Morning News." He lives in Austin, Texas.

Crime Thriller set in Spain In this second book of the Andalusian Mystery Series, four adults remain desperate to track down their former college headmaster. He abused them as teenagers, and they want justice at any price, their justice. But, after the debacle in Malaga, their numbers are dwindling. The ancient mountain city of Ronda is the home of bullfighting. At the annual Pedro Romero Festival, a famous Torero battles with the Royal Taurino Society, the supervisory body of Spain's national tradition. He wants to stop killing the brave animals, they insist on continuing with their public slaughter. But more sinister elements are manipulating their feud for their own ends. Then people start dying. Wily, veteran Detective Inspector, Leon Prado, investigates death in the afternoon.

In honor of the 100th anniversary of the Calgary Stampede, Bryden presents this #1 "Calgary Herald" bestseller detailing the fascinating true story of the romance that started the Stampede.
The love story of rodeo promoter Guy Weadick and trick roper Flores LaDue began among the rough-and-tumble vaudevillians preserving the frontier way of life in the first Wild West shows. Their love endured through North American performances in the small-time and big-time circuits to the audiences of Europe and culminated in 1912 with the most spectacular of accomplishments--the establishment of the greatest outdoor show on earth, the Calgary Exhibition & Stampede. That was one hundred years ago, and this is their story.

Marco Bellocchio is one of Italy's most important and prolific directors, with a career spanning five decades. In this book, Clodagh J. Brook explores the boundaries between the public and the private, the political and the personal, and the collective and the individual as they appear in Bellocchio's films. Including work on psychoanalysis, politics, film production, autobiography, and the relationship between film tradition and contemporary culture, Marco Bellocchio touches on fundamental issues in film analysis.

Brook's study interrogates what it means to make personal or anti-institutional art in a medium dominated by a late-capitalist industrial model of production. Her readings of Bellocchio's often enigmatic and perplexing work suggest new ways to answer questions about subjectivity, objectivity, and political commentary in modes of filmmaking. Relating the art of a private director to a public medium, Clodagh J. Brook's work is an important contribution to our understanding of film.

Bullfighting has long been perceived as an antiquated, barbarous legacy from Spain's medieval past. In fact, many of that country's best poets, philosophers, and intellectuals have accepted the corrida as the embodiment of Spain's rejection of the modern world. In his brilliant new interpretation of bullfighting, Adrian Shubert maintains that this view is both the product of myth and a complete misunderstanding of the real roots of the contemporary bullfight. While references to a form of bullfighting date back to the Poem of the Cid (1040), the modern bullfight did not emerge until the early 18th century. And when it did emerge, it was far from being an archaic remnant of the past--it was a precursor of the 20th-century mass leisure industry. Indeed, before today's multimillion-dollar athletes with wide-spread commercial appeal, there was Francisco Romero, born in 1700, whose unique form of bullfighting netted him unprecedented fame and wealth, and Manuel Rodriguez Manolete, hailed as Spain's greatest matador by the New York Times after a fatal goring in 1947. The bullfight was replete with promoters, agents, journalists, and, of course, hugely-paid bullfighters who were exploited to promote wine, cigarettes, and other products. Shubert analyzes the business of the sport, and explores the bullfighters' world: their social and geographic origins, careers, and social status. Here also are surprising revelations about the sport, such as the presence of women bullfighters--and the larger gender issues that this provoked. From the political use of bullfighting in royal and imperial pageants to the nationalistic "great patriotic bullfights" of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this is both a fascinating portrait of bullfighting and a vivid recreation of two centuries of Spanish history. Based on extensive research and engagingly written, Death and Money in the Afternoon vividly examines the evolution of Spanish culture and society through the prism of one of the West's first--and perhaps its most spectacular--spectator sports.

While blacks have played an important role - as explorers, scouts, Indian consorts, soldiers, cowboys, farmers - in the exploration, conquest, and settlement of the American West, they have received scant attention from the chroniclers of the pageant of western development.Few of rodeo's early heroes matched the achievements of the black cowboy Bill Pickett, and his story is recounted here for the first time in book form. Pickett grew up in Texas in the 1880's, the child of former slaves, to become nationally famous as the star of the 101 Ranch Wild West Show. Pickett was associated with such western figures as Tom Mix, Will Rogers, Milt Hinkle, and Lucille Mulhall, and earned a reputation as an all around cowboy of legendary abilities. His greatest claim to fame is as the originator of steer wrestling, the only rodeo event to the traced to one individual. Audiences all over the United States, South America, Canada, and England were amazed to see the ""Dusky Demon"" fell on thousand-pound steers and bring them down bite-'em style with his teeth. In spite of a life of incredible physical daring - afoot and unarmed he once took on an enraged fighting bull in a Mexico City arena - he lived to age sixty, to die with his boots on in a professional career had been with the 101 Ranch, and his funeral was on the ranch's last great events. In recognition of his many achievements Pickett was elected to the Cowboy Hall of Fame in 1971, the first black cowboy to be so honored. The author brings together all that is known about Pickett, sorting out the facts and legends, and un telling the story sheds new light on early-day rodeo and 101 Ranch life.

Take a wild ride into the TIGERS Preserve and witness the unique animal friendships created there. Wild Family reminds us that friendships aren't just for humans. When the life-and-death struggle of the natural world is removed, even animals that would be mortal enemies in the wild can become best buds. This collection of stories and photographs chronicles these unusual interspecies animal friendships. A depressed black lab named Pharos finds his purpose in life by helping to train two liger cubs, Aries and Yeti. German shepherd Anubis helps Woola the wolf grow into a healthy and well-adjusted adult. Chimpanzee Anjana helps her trainer raise two white tiger cubs born prematurely during a hurricane. Adorable photographs accompany these heartwarming stories, all told from the perspective of Doc, the proprietor of the TIGERS Preserve. Each story points to the same conclusion--that all kinds of animals, like all kinds of humans, are capable of empathy, compassion, and love.

Full of charming animals and devious villains, this brand new middle grade will enchant middle grade readers! PRAISE FOR THE ELEPHANT THIEF: 'A classic-in-the-making.' THE TIMES 'This is storytelling at its best' BOOKS FOR KEEPS Danny works at Belle Vue Zoo, where - alongside training the famous elephant Maharajah - he helps out with the day-to-day caring for the animals. But when animals start escaping, Danny is the prime suspect: after all, he was a former street urchin and pickpocket. When a man turns up claiming to be his father, the plot thickens. Can Danny untangle the mystery of the animal escapade - and find out where he really belongs - in order to clear his name? The second novel from Jane Kerr, author of critically acclaimed The Elephant Thief Charming animals and deveious villains will enchant readers Perfect for ages 9 and up

Sidney Franklin (1903-76) was the last person you'd expect to become a bullfighter. The streetwise son of a Russian Jewish cop, Sidney had an all-American boyhood in early twentieth-century Brooklyn--while hiding the fact that he was gay. A violent confrontation with his father sent him packing to Mexico City, where first he opened a business, then he opened his mouth--bragging that Americans had the courage to become bullfighters. Training with iconic matador Rodolfo Gaona, Sidney's dare spawned a legend. Following years in small-town Mexican bullrings, he put his moxie where his mouth was, taking Spain by storm as the first American matador. Sidney's 1929 rise coincided with that of his friend Ernest Hemingway's, until a bull's horn in a most inappropriate place almost ended his career--and his life. Bart Paul illuminates the artistry and violence of the mysterious ritual of the bulls as he tells the story of this remarkable character, from Franklin's life in revolutionary Mexico to his triumphs in Spain, from the pages of "Death in the Afternoon" to the destructive vortex of Hemingway's affair with Martha Gellhorn during the bloody Spanish Civil War. This is the story of an unlikely hero--a gay man in the most masculine of worlds who triumphed over prejudice and adversity as he achieved what no American had ever accomplished, teaching even Hemingway lessons in grace, machismo, and respect.

Dimitris Zafiropoulos' book is an introduction to the world of dolphins and whales of the Greek Seas as well as an identification and field guide. It includes information on their geographical distribution, on how to find, study and identify dolphins and whales that are regularly observed in Greek waters. The book is a result of Zafiropoulos' 12 years of field research, experiences and adventures; it's an account of close encounters with Striped Dolphins, a Fin Whale at Khorinthiakos Gulf, of fieldwork with the Bottlenose Dolphins of Amvrakikos, and of observations of the endangered Common Dolphins. Full of photographs and in-depth illustrations of dolphin and whale species, the guide is ideal for any one with the intention of having a close encounter with these animals either in Greek waters or abroad.

William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody was the entertainment industry's first international celebrity, achieving worldwide stardom with his traveling Wild West show. For three decades he operated and appeared in various incarnations of "the western world's greatest traveling attraction," enthralling audiences around the globe. When the show reached Europe it was a sensation, igniting "Wild West fever" by offering what purported to be a genuine experience of the American frontier. By any standard Charles Eldridge Griffin (1859-1914), manager of the Wild West's European tour, was a remarkable man. Known by the stage names of Monsieur F. Le Costro, Professor Griffin, and the Yankee Yogi, he was an author, comedian, conjurer, contortionist, dancer, fire-eater, hypnotist, illusionist, lecturer, magician, newspaper owner, publisher, sword swallower, and yogi. His account of life on the road with the Wild West show, published here for the first time since its release in 1908, opens a window on a vanished world. In addition to line drawings and photographs from the original book, Chris Dixon provides an introduction and annotations for historical context. Griffin's story of traveling with Buffalo Bill in Europe from 1903 to 1906 presents a fascinating picture of a quintessentially American character. At the same time it offers a vision of the nation on the verge of nationalism, imperialism, and an emerging global mass culture.

All animals have the ability to make us question the human, and its relationship to the other.This cutting-edge text addresses the implications of involving animals in performance. It demonstrates ways in which animals transform theatre's capacity to make meaning, and suggests they expose theatre's negotiations with wider ethical, social and economic questions. Ultimately, the book argues that incorporating animals into performance brings about a reassessment of the ways in which theatre is produced and received.