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Books > Language & Literature > Literature: texts > Essays, journals, letters & other prose works > From 1900
Europe is facing a wave of migration unmatched since the end of
World War II - and no one has reported on this crisis in more depth
or breadth than the Guardian's migration correspondent, Patrick
Kingsley. Throughout 2015, Kingsley travelled to 17 countries along
the migrant trail, meeting hundreds of refugees making epic
odysseys across deserts, seas and mountains to reach the holy grail
of Europe. This is Kingsley's unparalleled account of who these
voyagers are. It's about why they keep coming, and how they do it.
It's about the smugglers who help them on their way, and the
coastguards who rescue them at the other end. The volunteers that
feed them, the hoteliers that house them, and the border guards
trying to keep them out. And the politicians looking the other way.
'Do you sometimes think that you might wish that you were a
national treasure, like Alan Bennett?' 'I'm rather glad I'm not.
I'm quite pleased to be what I think I am, which is a sort of
national liability.' Over the course of seven decades, Jonathan
Miller has been at the forefront of developments in theatre, opera,
comedy, philosophy and scientific debate. This new collection
brings together the very best of his acerbic writing. In keeping
with Miller's grasshopper mind, One Thing and Another leaps from
discussions of human behaviour, atheism, satire, cinema and
television, to analysis of the work of M. R. James, Lewis Carroll,
Charles Dickens and Truman Capote, by way of reflections on
directing Shakespeare, Chekhov, Olivier and opera. A celebrated
conversationalist, the book also features a selection of key
interviews focusing on his working method. Jonathan Miller is
internationally celebrated as one of the last great public
intellectuals. Read One Thing and Another to find out why.
After 1850, Americans swarmed to take in a raft of new illustrated
journals and papers. Engravings and drawings of "buckskinned
braves" and "Indian princesses" proved an immensely popular
attraction for consumers of publications like Frank Leslie's
Illustrated Newspaper and Harper's Weekly . In Indians Illustrated
, John M. Coward charts a social and cultural history of Native
American illustrations--romantic, violent, racist, peaceful, and
otherwise--in the heyday of the American pictorial press. These
woodblock engravings and ink drawings placed Native Americans into
categories that drew from venerable "good" Indian and "bad" Indian
stereotypes already threaded through the culture. Coward's examples
show how the genre cemented white ideas about how Indians should
look and behave--ideas that diminished Native Americans' cultural
values and political influence. His powerful analysis of themes and
visual tropes unlocks the racial codes and visual cues that whites
used to represent--and marginalize--native cultures already engaged
in a twilight struggle against inexorable westward expansion.
For seventy-five years, W. F. Deedes has reported on the most
important events, affairs and issues that have affected Britain,
Europe and the World. Words and Deedes brings together a life's
work, selecting the very best of his journalism to give a unique
overview of the best part of the last century. Starting as a cub
reporter in 1931, Deedes' inimitable eye was cast over the world
caught in economic depression and inching closer to another
devastating war. Yet, whether describing his campaign to alleviate
the hardships of disadvantaged children or the ruthlessness of
Mussolini's war machine, Deedes' pieces seem as fresh and vibrant
now as they did then. This vivid and immediate style suffuses all
his writing, making each story relevant, whether it be recent or
more than fifty years old. This remarkable volume charts a course
through some of the most turbulent times the world has ever seen,
and yet on every page there is something to enlighten, delight or
amuse. With this collection, W. F. Deedes cements his place as one
of the very finest journalists of this, or any other century.
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