This book is much more than an authoritative and compelling look at the cultural history of the supernatural over the last century in America-it also explains why we want to believe. The supernatural-psychic phenomena (telepathy, clairvoyance, or ESP), communicating with the dead, and the sighting and tracking of ghosts-has played an integral role in American culture across the last century. In fact, attention and interest in the supernatural has increased, despite our society's reliance upon and enthusiasm for science and technology. Even some top scholars, officials from the military and police, and public figures in places as high as the Oval Office have believed in at least some aspects of the supernatural. Supernatural America: A Cultural History is the first book to examine the cultural history of the supernatural in the United States, documenting how the expansion of science and technology coincided with a rise in supernatural/paranormal beliefs. From the flourishing of "spiritism" in the 1920s to the early 21st century, when the paranormal is bigger than ever, this entertaining and educational book explains the irresistible allure of the supernatural in America. Shares hundreds of real-life stories, and uses hundreds of sources, many of them forgotten Provides a bibliography of authoritative books and articles, both in support of and arguing against beliefs in the supernatural

This volume contains annotated translations of anecdotes, on musicological and socio-cultural topics, from al-Isbahani's The Grand Book of Songs. Includes music theory and treatises; instruments; composition techniques; education and transmission; vocal and instrumental performances; solo and ensemble music; improvisations; emotions; dances; social status.

The Beatles are widely regarded as the foremost and most influential music band in history and their career has been the subject of many biographies. Yet the band's historical significance has not received sustained academic treatment to date. In The Beatles' Reception in the 1960s, Kenneth L. Campbell uses the Beatles as a lens through which to explore the sweeping, panoramic history of the social, cultural and political transformations that occurred in the 1960s. It draws on audience reception theory and untapped primary source material, including student newspapers, to understand how listeners would have interpreted the Beatles' songs and albums not only in Britain and the United States, but also globally. Taking a year-by-year approach, each chapter analyses the external influences the Beatles absorbed, consciously or unconsciously, from the culture surrounding them. Some key topics include race relations, gender dynamics, political and cultural upheavals, the Vietnam War and the evolution of rock music and popular culture. The book will also address the resurgence of the Beatles' popularity in the 1980s, as well as the relevance of The Beatles' ideals of revolutionary change to our present day. This is essential reading for anyone looking for an accessible yet rigorous study of the historical relevance of the Beatles in a crucial decade of social change.

The Memorial Book of Brzeziny, Poland is the English translation of the Yizkor (Memorial) Book published in Yiddish in 1961 by survivors and former residents of the town. It details through personal accounts the town, its history, personalities, institutions and the ultimate destruction of the Jewish community by the Nazis and their Polish collaborators in World War II. This publication by the "Yizkor Books in Print Project" of JewishGen, Inc., serves to provide the English speaking community with these first-hand accounts in book format, so that researchers and descendants of Jewish emigrants from the town can learn this history. 468 pages with Illustrations. Hard Cover

The spectacle of the wounded body figured prominently in the Middle Ages, from images of Christ's wounds on the cross, to the ripped and torn bodies of tortured saints who miraculously heal through divine intervention, to graphic accounts of battlefield and tournament wounds-evidence of which survives in the archaeological record-and literary episodes of fatal (or not so fatal) wounds. This volume offers a comprehensive look at the complexity of wounding and wound repair in medieval literature and culture, bringing together essays from a wide range of sources and disciplines including arms and armaments, military history, medical history, literature, art history, hagiography, and archaeology across medieval and early modern Europe. Contributors are Stephen Atkinson, Debby Banham, Albrecht Classen, Joshua Easterling, Charlene M. Eska, Carmel Ferragud, M.R. Geldof, Elina Gertsman, Barbara A. Goodman, Maire Johnson, Rachel E. Kellett, Ilana Krug, Virginia Langum, Michael Livingston, Iain A. MacInnes, Timothy May, Vibeke Olson, Salvador Ryan, William Sayers, Patricia Skinner, Alicia Spencer-Hall, Wendy J. Turner, Christine Voth, and Robert C. Woosnam-Savage.

This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It contains classical literature works from over two thousand years. Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of international literature classics available in printed format again - worldwide.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Arab world has undergone a series of radical transformations. One of the most significant is the resurgence of activist and puritanical forms of religion presenting as viable alternatives to existing social, cultural and political practices. The rise in sectarianism and violence in the name of religion has left scholars searching for adequate conceptual tools that might generate a clearer insight into these interconnected conflicts. In Striking from the Margins, leading authorities in their field propose new analytical frameworks to facilitate greater understanding of the fragmentation and devolution of the state in the Arab world. Challenging the revival of well-worn theories in cultural and post-colonial studies, they provide novel contributions on issues ranging from military formations, political violence in urban and rural settings, trans-regional war economies, the crystallisation of sect-based authorities and the restructuring of tribal networks. Placing much-needed emphasis on the re-emergence of religion, this timely and vital volume offers a new, critical approach to the study of the volatile and evolving cultural, social and political landscapes of the Middle East.

Pastimes is the first book in English on Chinese jinshi, or antiquarianism, the pinnacle of traditional connoisseurship of ancient artifacts and inscriptions. As a scholarly field, jinshi was inaugurated in the Northern Song (960-1127) and remained popular until the early twentieth century. Literally the study of inscriptions on bronze vessels and stone steles, jinshi combined calligraphy and painting, the collection of artifacts, and philological and historical research. For aficionados of Chinese art, the practices of jinshi offer a fascinating glimpse into the lives of traditional Chinese scholars and artists, who spent their days roaming the sometimes seamy world of the commercial art market before attending elegant antiquarian parties, where they composed poetic tributes to their ancient objects of obsession. And during times of political upheaval, such as the nineteenth century, the art and artifact studies of jinshi legitimatized reform and contributed to a dynamic and progressive field of learning.

Real adventures are not always coming out of the make believe book factories. Instead the most fascinating and entertaining one are generated by the life.' The Hidden River' is such a story. A very young man caught in the infernal maelstrom of the World War two, his struggle for survival in an environment of carnage, destruction and hopelessness and of his discovery that sometimes challenges in life are the tools that makes us understand that we are more than we think we are. His adventures are endless, hard to believe but fascinating as they take us to a world few of us can imagine was existing. Victories are not always won by cloak and dagger plot. Sometime survival itself is the victory and endurance and resourcefulness are needed. The war ended .By a miraculous set of events he was able to come to the USA, then meet Frank Lloyd Wright, the famous Architect, then go on with a normal life. But his mental balance had been shattered and he was in need of healing and direction's he went on another adventure, the one of self discovery. From Frank Lloyd Wright he had glimpsed the world of beauty harmony and creativity. Not enough for him for, he needed the reassurance that all was not misery and ugliness in the world. A fateful meeting with Paramhansa Yogananda, the great Yogi, gave him the spiritual and mental direction he had been lacking .The new adventure of his Recovery is the last part of the book

While in the last twenty years perceptions of Europe have been subjected to detailed historical scrutiny, American images of the Old World have been almost wantonly neglected. As a response to this scholarly desideratum, this pioneering study analyzes neoconservative images of Europe since the 1970s on the basis of an extensive collection of sources. With fresh insight into the evolution of American images of Europe as well as into the history of U.S. neoconservatism, the book appeals to readers familiar and new to the subject matters alike. The study explores how, beginning in the early 1970s, ideas of the United States as an anti-Europe have permeated neoconservative writing and shaped their self-images and political agitation. The choice of periodization and investigated personnel enables the author to refute popular claims that widespread Euro-critical sentiment in the United Studies during the early 21st century - considerably ignited by neoconservatives - was a distinct post-Cold War phenomenon. Instead, the analysis reveals that the fiery rhetoric in the context of the Iraq War debates was merely the climax of a decade-old development.

The inauguration of Barack Obama as president of the United States of America in 2009 marked a crucial turning point in African American history. It was the culmination of a chain of events that started nearly four hundred years ago when the evil of slavery cast its shadow on America.

Tracing the history of black Americans, A Chain of Events documents how God gave them the freedom and will to rise from the ashes of slavery to become true Americans. Author Ruthie Green examines the harrowing life of slaves in early America, their emancipation by Abraham Lincoln, and their long struggle through the years for recognition as citizens of the United States.

Green also discusses some of the African American community's most prominent and influential early members, including W. E. B. Du Bois, George Washington Carver, and Marcus Garvey Jr. She profiles leading African American entertainers and delves into the tumultuous years of the civil rights movement and the impact of Martin Luther King Jr. In addition, she talks about such important African Americans as Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Jesse Owens, the Tuskegee Airmen, Ethel Waters, and many more.

A Chain of Events offers an eye-opening glimpse into the remarkable history of African Americans.

This is the first book to capture the poignant stories of transnational African families and their use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in mediating their experiences of migration and caring across distance.

Transnational Families in Africa analyses the highs and lows of family separation as a result of migration in three contexts: migration within South Africa from rural to urban areas; migration from other African countries into South Africa; and middle-class South Africans emigrating to non-African countries. The book foregrounds the importance of kinship and support from extended family as well as both the responsibilities migatory family members feel and the experience of loss by those left behind.

Across the diverse circumstances explored in the book are similarities in migrants' strategies for keeping in touch, but also large differences in relation to access to ICTs and ease-of-use that highlight the digital divide and generational gaps. As elsewhere in the world, and in spite of the varied experiences in these kinship circles, the phenomenon that is the transnational family is showing no signs of receding.

This book provides a groundbreaking contribution to global debates on migration from the Global South.

In this groundbreaking book Andrew Sluyter demonstrates for the first time that Africans played significant creative roles in establishing open-range cattle ranching in the Americas. In so doing, he provides a new way of looking at and studying the history of land, labor, property, and commerce in the Atlantic world. Sluyter shows that Africans' ideas and creativity helped to establish a production system so fundamental to the environmental and social relations of the American colonies that the consequences persist to the present. He examines various methods of cattle production, compares these methods to those used in Europe and the Americas, and traces the networks of actors that linked that Atlantic world. The use of archival documents, material culture items, and ecological relationships between landscape elements make this book a methodologically and substantively original contribution to Atlantic, African-American, and agricultural history.

"From the mountains, to the prairies To the oceans white with foam, Every Native American Must leave his home." l.

Imagine that someone comes to your home and forces you at gunpoint to leave. Your response might be termed "savage."

"Savage" was how the New World invaders described American Indians. Settlers chased them across the continent, as the government signed treaties that they later broke. They also subjected the native inhabitants to horrible atrocities.

Author George E. Saurman, a World War II veteran and proud American, explores what really happened to Native American Indians, examining Native American Indian tribes and their customs; the actions of early settlers, including William Penn and his holy experiment; contributions of the Native American Indians; and conditions on reservations today.

Saurman also considers how the Bureau of Indian Affairs handled relations between natives and settlers, as well as what Native American Indians from the past and today have had to say about events.

Even today, broken promises obscure what's really going on in Native American Indian communities. It's time that a serious effort be made to rectify the situation, and it starts by realizing that "We've Done Them Wrong."

Throughout history, Jews have often been regarded, and treated, as "strangers." In The Stranger in Early Modern and Modern Jewish Tradition, authors from a wide variety of disciplines discuss how the notion of "the stranger" can offer an integrative perspective on Jewish identities, on the non-Jewish perceptions of Jews, and on the relations between Jews and non-Jews in an innovative way. Contributions from history, philosophy, religion, sociology, literature, and the arts offer a new perspective on the Jewish experience in early modern and modern times: in contact and conflict, in processes of attribution and allegation, but also self-reflection and negotiation, focused on the figure of the stranger.

In The Orce Man: Controversy, Media and Politics in Human Origins Research, Miquel Carandell presents a thrilling story of a controversy on an Spanish "First European" that involved scientists, politicians and newspapers. In the early 1980s, with Spanish democracy in its beginnings, the Orce bone was transformed from a famous human ancestor to an apparently ridiculous donkey remain. With a chronological narrative, this book is not centered on whether the bone was human or not, but on the circumstances that made a certain claim credible or not, from both the scientific community and the general public. Carandell's analysis draws on the thin line that separates success from failure and the role of media and politics in the controversy.

This anthology addresses and analyses the transformation of interconnected spaces and spatial entanglements in the Atlantic rim during the era of the slave trade by focusing on the Danish possessions on the Gold Coast and their Caribbean islands of Saint Thomas, Saint Jan and Saint Croix as well as on the Swedish Caribbean island of Saint Barthelemy. The first part of the anthology addresses aspects of interconnectedness in West Africa, in particular the relationship between Africans and Danes on the Gold Coast. The second part of this volume examines various aspects of interconnectedness, creolisation and experiences of Danish and Swedish slave rules in the Caribbean. *Ports of Globalisationis now available in paperback for individual customers.

A primary source analysis of the migration of Jews from Argentina to Israel. Between Exile and Exodus: Argentinian Jewish Immigration to Israel, 1948-1967 examines the case of the 16,500 Argentine Jewish immigrants who arrived in Israel during the first two decades of its existence (1948-1967). Based on a thorough investigation of various archives in Argentina and Israel, author Sebastian Klor presents a sociohistoric analysis of that immigration with a comparative perspective. Although manystudies have explored Jewish immigration to the State of Israel, few have dealt with the immigrants themselves. Between Exile and Exodus offers fascinating insights into this migration, its social and economic profiles, and the motivation for the relocation of many of these people. It contributes to different areas of study-Argentina and its Jews, Jewish immigration to Israel, and immigration in general. This book's integration of a computerized database comprising the personal data of more than 10,000 Argentinian Jewish immigrants has allowed the author to uncover their stories in a direct, intimate manner. Because immigration is an individual experience, rather than a collective one, the author aims to address the individual's perspective in order to fully comprehend the process. In the area of Argentinian Jewry it brings a new approach to the study of Zionism and the relations of the community with Israel, pointing out the importance of family as a basis for mutual interactions. Klor's work clarifies the centrality of marginal groups in the case of Jewish immigration to Israel, and demystifies the idea that aliya from Argentina was solely ideological. In the area of Israeli studies the book takes a critical view of the "catastrophic" concept as a cause for Jewish immigration to Israel, analyzing the gap between the decision-makers in Israel and in Argentina and the real circumstances of the individual immigrants. It also contributes to migration studies, showing how an atypical case, such as the Argentinian Jewish immigrants to Israel, is shaped by similar patterns that characterize "classical" mass migrations, such as the impact of chain migrations and the immigration of marginal groups. This book's importance lies in uncovering and examining individual viewpoints alongside the official, bureaucratic immigration narrative.