It whispers, it sings, it rocks, and it howls. It expresses the voice of the folk the open road, freedom, protest and rebellion, youth and love. It is the acoustic guitar. And over the last five decades it has become a quintessential American icon. Because this musical instrument is significant to so many in ways that are emotional, cultural, and economic guitar making has experienced a renaissance in North America, both as a popular hobby and, for some, a way of life.

Pan-European research on medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a range of disciplines. This volume continues the series' tradition of bringing together work on clothing and textiles from across Europe. It has a strong focus on gold: subjects include sixth-century German burials containing sumptuous jewellery and bands brocaded with gold; the textual evidence for recycling such gold borders and bands in the later Anglo-Saxon period; and a semantic classification of words relating to gold in multi-lingual medieval Britain. It also rescues significant archaeological textiles from obscurity: there is a discussion of early medieval headdresses from The Netherlands, and an examination of a fifteenth-century Italian cushion, an early example of piecework. Finally, uses of dress and textiles in literature are explored in a survey of the Welsh Mabinogion and Jean Renart's Roman de la Rose. Robin Netherton is a professional editor and a researcher/lecturer on the interpretationof medieval European dress; Gale R. Owen-Crocker is Professor of Anglo-Saxon Culture at the University of Manchester. Contributors: Brigitte Haas-Gebhard, Britt Nowak-Boeck, Maren Clegg Hyer, Louise Sylvester, ChrystelBrandenburgh, Lisa Evans, Patricia Williams, Katherine Talarico.

A wide-ranging and varied collection of essays which examine surviving garments, methods of production and clothes in society. The second decade of this acclaimed and popular series begins with a volume that will be essential reading for historians and re-enactors alike. Two papers consider cloth manufacture in the early medieval period: Ingvild Øye examines the graves of prosperous Viking Age women from Western Norway which contained both textile-making tools and the remains of cloth, considering the relationship between the two. Karen Nicholson compliments this with practical experiments in spinning. This is followed by Tina Anderlini's close examination of the details of cut and construction of a thirteenth-century chemise attributed to King Louis IX of France (St Louis), out of its shrine for the firsttime since 1970. Three papers consider fashionable clothing and morality: Sarah-Grace Heller discusses sumptuary legislation from Angevin Sicily in the 1290s which sought to restrict men's dress at a time when preparation for war was more important than showy clothes; Cordelia Warr examines the dire consequences of a woman dressing extravagantly as portrayed in a fourteenth-century Italian fresco; and Emily Rozier discusses the extremes of dress attributed by moral and satirical writers to the men known as "galaunts". Two textual studies then show the importance of textiles in daily life. Susan Powell reveals the austere but magnificent purchases made on behalf of Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of King Henry VII, in the last ten years of her life (1498-1509); Anna Riehl Bertolet discusses in detail the passage in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream where Helena passionately recalls sewinga sampler with Hermia when they were young and still bosom friends.

Spirits for the Mind and Body contains 2101 Cocktail and Alcoholic Beverages in such categories as Beer Mug, Brandy Snifter, Champagne, Cocktail, Collins, Coupette, Highball, Irish Mug, Old-Fashioned, Pousse-Cafe, Punch Bowl, Red Wine, Shot Glass, Whiskey Sour, and White Wine.

A collection of 72 great tasting recipes for the chili lover in all of us.

"I never felt he left me or our marriage or the children. I felt he was leaving the farm problems". These words are from a woman reflecting on the farm crisis of the 1980s, the greatest economic disaster to hit rural America since the Depression. During this period, hundreds of thousands of farmers lost their farms and farm communities were irrevocably altered. As Kathryn Dudley demonstrates in this book, the crisis gave rise to a devastating social trauma that continues to affect farmers today. Through interviews with residents of an agricultural county in western Minnesota, Dudley chronicles the experience of financial failure in a culture that extols the virtues of independent business management, competitive production and middle-class self-sufficiency. Media images of the farm crisis fostered the impression that a majority of farmers banded together to protest the forced sales of neighbouring farms. Dudley counters this misleading view with her perceptive analysis of the local "culture of suspicion" that rejects political activism, discourages solidarity among neighbours and regards deeply indebted farmers as bad managers who deserve to lose their farms. Farming as a way of life turns out to be not a cultural refuge from the impersonal forces of capitalism, but emblematic of the very spirit of enterprise that animates a market-oriented society. With its focus on the moral dimension of economic loss and dislocation, this book raises far-reaching social questions: What does it take to be middle class in America? What kind of community is possible in a capitalist society?

A neurotically funny collection that looks under the hood of adult life As in life, she was a pain in the arse in death. He could hear her roaring all the way from the fifth circle, 'Why the hell do you get to be in a better circle than me, I'm wrathful because of your lust -' Deploying a chorus of voices both ancient and modern to explore a world of sexual politics and singles cruises, dysfunctional families and psychoanalysis, awkward cohabitations and self-help guides for the would-be Dream Girl, this is the third collection from a unique poetic talent: observant, obsessive and wickedly witty. 'The funniest book I've read in years. Maris flexes her wit and wisdom to create a litany of nervous characters in a style that's mordant, sarcastic, satiric yet often compassionate . . . a poet of risk, she is dark, deep and often laugh out loud' DALJIT NAGRA 'Her dry, droll, clinically deadpan manner is all her own; but her themes - obscure hurts, implacable dissatisfactions, hardwired propensity for victimhood and suffering - reflect the experience of humanity at large' CHRISTOPHER REID

An evocative and powerful portrait of America in transition, The End of the Line tells the story of what the 1988 closing of the Chrysler assembly plant in Kenosha, Wisconsin, meant to the people who lived in that company town. Since the early days of the twentieth century, Kenosha had forged its identity and politics around the interests of the auto industry. When nearly six thousand workers lost their jobs in the shutdown, the community faced not only a serious economic crisis but also a profound moral one. In this innovative study, Dudley describes the painful, often confusing process of change that residents of Kenosha, like the increasing number of Americans who are caught in the crossfire of deindustrialization, were forced to undergo. Through interviews with displaced autoworkers and Kenosha's community leaders, high-school counselors, and a rising class of upwardly mobile professionals, Dudley dramatizes the lessons Kenoshans drew from the plant shutdown. When economic forces intrude on our lives, the resulting changes in earning power, status, and access to opportunity affect our sense of who we are, what we are worth, the nature of the world we live in, and in particular, what it takes to succeed. Dudley examines how ideas about self-worth - especially those based on market ideologies of competition and the Darwinian notion that only the fittest survive - become the subject of intense cultural conflict. Dudley describes a community in conflict with itself: while Kenosha's autoworkers struggle to regain an economic foothold and make sense of their suddenly devalued place in society, white-collar workers, professionals, and a new wave of politicians see themselves at thevanguard of a new moral order that redefines community as a "culture of mind" instead of the traditional "culture of hands" long associated with the work of the assembly line. This honest, moving portrait of one town's radical shift from a manufacturing to a postindustrial economy will redefine the way Americans across class lines think about our families, communities, and future.

Counterterrorism laws and policies have become a normalized fixture of security agendas across the globe. How do 'us/them' identity constructions contribute to the legitimizing strategies surrounding this development? The British case provides a historically-situated illustration which is of ongoing significance for security and insecurity today.

"I never felt he left me or our marriage or the children. I felt he was leaving the farm problems". These words are from a woman reflecting on the farm crisis of the 1980s, the greatest economic disaster to hit rural America since the Depression. During this period, hundreds of thousands of farmers lost their farms and farm communities were irrevocably altered. As Kathryn Dudley demonstrates in this book, the crisis gave rise to a devastating social trauma that continues to affect farmers today. Through interviews with residents of an agricultural county in western Minnesota, Dudley chronicles the experience of financial failure in a culture that extols the virtues of independent business management, competitive production and middle-class self-sufficiency. Media images of the farm crisis fostered the impression that a majority of farmers banded together to protest the forced sales of neighbouring farms. Dudley counters this misleading view with her perceptive analysis of the local "culture of suspicion" that rejects political activism, discourages solidarity among neighbours and regards deeply indebted farmers as bad managers who deserve to lose their farms. Farming as a way of life turns out to be not a cultural refuge from the impersonal forces of capitalism, but emblematic of the very spirit of enterprise that animates a market-oriented society. With its focus on the moral dimension of economic loss and dislocation, this book raises far-reaching social questions: What does it take to be middle class in America? What kind of community is possible in a capitalist society?

An evocative and powerful portrait of America in transition, The End of the Line tells the story of what the 1988 closing of the Chrysler assembly plant in Kenosha, Wisconsin, meant to the people who lived in that company town. Since the early days of the twentieth century, Kenosha had forged its identity and politics around the interests of the auto industry. When nearly six thousand workers lost their jobs in the shutdown, the community faced not only a serious economic crisis but also a profound moral one. In this innovative study, Dudley describes the painful, often confusing process of change that residents of Kenosha, like the increasing number of Americans who are caught in the crossfire of deindustrialization, were forced to undergo. Through interviews with displaced autoworkers and Kenosha's community leaders, high-school counselors, and a rising class of upwardly mobile professionals, Dudley dramatizes the lessons Kenoshans drew from the plant shutdown. When economic forces intrude on our lives, the resulting changes in earning power, status, and access to opportunity affect our sense of who we are, what we are worth, the nature of the world we live in, and in particular, what it takes to succeed. Dudley examines how ideas about self-worth - especially those based on market ideologies of competition and the Darwinian notion that only the fittest survive - become the subject of intense cultural conflict. Dudley describes a community in conflict with itself: while Kenosha's autoworkers struggle to regain an economic foothold and make sense of their suddenly devalued place in society, white-collar workers, professionals, and a new wave of politicians see themselves at thevanguard of a new moral order that redefines community as a "culture of mind" instead of the traditional "culture of hands" long associated with the work of the assembly line. This honest, moving portrait of one town's radical shift from a manufacturing to a postindustrial economy will redefine the way Americans across class lines think about our families, communities, and future.