Appearing for the first time in English, this award winning book is a masterpiece of scholarship that reads like an adventure story. In The United States and the Pacific, Jean Heffer offers a history of the Pacific as a "frontier" of the United States using economics, politics, and culture as his central areas of consideration.

Heffer remarks that, "it is often said nowadays that the Pacific will become the center of the world in the 21st century." While many studies have analyzed specific zones or regions within the Pacific, The United States and the Pacific is one of the first to consider the whole of this vast ocean and its coasts as a single unit of study. In broadening the scope of analysis, one of Heffer's primary aims is to expand American understanding of the term "frontier" to include the Pacific and its nations.

Heffer focuses on three major chronological periods. The first period stretches from 1784, the year the first ship flying the American flag reached China, to 1867, the eve of the Civil War. During this period, America's presence was expanding throughout the entire ocean. The second period, from 1868 to Pearl Harbor in 1941, witnessed a simultaneous contraction of the area within which various American interests were active, and a gradual integration of the frontier region. Finally, World War II marks the beginning of the third period, which concludes in 1994, during which, Heffer argues, the entire Pacific becomes an "American lake" and the former frontier begins to disappear.

The United States and the Pacific is populated with fascinating characters, including whalers, missionaries, investors, sailors, diplomats, and merchant marines. Heffer's provocative andchallenging history of the Pacific as a "frontier" entertains as it informs.

"Silky prose in this harrowing account of crime and punishment."--"Kirkus Reviews""Using spare, effective prose, Chessex brilliantly renders both the inhospitable winter landscape of the mountains and the harshness of a society that makes monsters of its victims.'--"London"" Review of Books"

"A superb novel, hard as a winter in these landscapes of dark forests, where an atmosphere of prejudice and violence envelops the reader."--"L'Express"

"It's beautiful; it's pure, like a blue sky over a black forest. Giono without garlic and olives."--"Le Point"

"Far from just telling us a simple story Chessex has had the intelligence to integrate a dose of poetry, of the aesthetics of sin, and of the metaphysics of the monster."--"Lire"

Jacques Chessex, winner of the prestigious Goncourt prize, takes a true story and weaves it into a lyrical tale of fear and cruelty.

1903, Ropraz, a small village near the Jura Mountains of Switzerland. On a howling December day, a lone walker discovers a recently opened tomb, the body of a young woman violated, her left hand cut off, genitals mutilated, and heart carved out. There is horror in the nearby villages: the return of atavistic superstitions and mutual suspicions. Then two more bodies are violated. A suspect must be found. Favez, a stableboy with bloodshot eyes, is arrested and placed in psychiatric care. He escapes, enlists in the Foreign Legion as the First World War begins, and is sent into battle in the trenches of the Somme.

Jacques Chessex, born in 1934, won the Prix Goncourt, France's most prestigious literary prize for his novel "A Father's Love." He is considered one of Switzerland's greatest living authors. He lives in Ropraz.

At one time, the use of corporal punishment by parents in child-rearing was considered normal, but in the second half of the nineteenth century this begin to change, in Quebec as well as the rest of the Western world. It was during this period that the extent of ill-treatment inflicted on childrenatreatment once excused as good child-rearing practiceawas discovered. This book analyzes both the advice provided to parents and the different forms of child abuse within families. Cliche derives her information from family magazines, reports and advice columns in newspapers, people's life stories, the records of the Montreal Juvenile Court, and even comic strips. Two dates are given particular focus: 1920, with the trial of the parents of Aurore Gagnon, which sensitized the public to the phenomenon of "child martyrs;" and 1940, with the advent of the New Education movement, which was based on psychology rather than strict discipline and religious doctrine. There has always been child abuse. What has changed is society's sensitivity to it. That is why defenders of children's rights call for the repeal of Section 43 of the Canadian Criminal Code, which authorizes "reasonable" corporal punishment. Abuse or Punishment? considers not only the history of violence towards children in Quebec but the history of public perception of this violence and what it means for the rest of Canada.

Described by some as a "necropolis for babies," the province of Quebec in the early twentieth century recorded infant mortality rates, particularly among French-speaking Catholics, that were among the highest in the Western world. This "bleeding of the nation" gave birth to a vast movement for child welfare that paved the way for a medicalization of childbearing.

In "Babies for the Nation," basing her analysis on extensive documentary research and more than fifty interviews with mothers, Denyse Baillargeon sets out to understand how doctors were able to convince women to consult them, and why mothers chose to follow their advice. Her analysis considers the medical discourse of the time, the development of free services made available to mothers between 1910 and 1970, and how mothers used these services.

Showing the variety of social actors involved in this process (doctors, nurses, women's groups, members of the clergy, private enterprise, the state, and the mothers themselves), this study delineates the alliances and the conflicts that arose between them in a complex phenomenon that profoundly changed the nature of childbearing in Quebec.

"Un Quebec en mal d'enfants: La medicalisation de la maternite 1910--1970 " was awarded the Clio-Quebec Prize, the Lionel Groulx-Yves-Saint-Germain Prize, and the Jean-Charles-Falardeau Prize. This translation by W. Donald Wilson brings this important book to a new readership.

WILSON'S WAY - Win Don't Whine is the compelling story of how Donald E. Wilson beat the odds and defied all expectations, first as an outstanding doctor and world leading researcher, and then as the nation's first African American dean of a majority medical school. More than the story of one man on his way to greatness, Wilson's Way illuminates the path that any one of us - of any race or gender - can travel to achieve what seems to be the impossible, in any arena of our lives. As instructive as it is inspirational, the book is especially valuable for CEO's, deans, business leaders, managers, entrepreneurs, teachers, politicians, and anyone in a position of leadership - or who wishes to be. African American and other minority readers will particularly find the book a motivational, real-life testimony of how to ignore the relentlessly low expectations of the dominant culture, and to define and achieve one's own goals in any situation. Prepare to be enlightened, amused and challenged.

This valuable reference contains 176 articles on terms and practices used in worship. It includes answers to questions such as, why do Christians observe Lent? what is ecumenism? what does Maundy Thursday mean? and what is Pentecost? Clearly written, it is arranged in alphabetical order and is cross-referenced. Articles on symbols and on the Christian year are also included.

"A Brief History of Women in Quebec" examines the historical experience of women of different social classes and origins (geographic, ethnic, and racial) from the period of contact between Europeans and Aboriginals to the twenty-first century to give a nuanced and complex account of the main transformations in their lives.

Themes explored include demography, such as marriage, fecundity, and immigration; women's work outside and inside the home, including motherhood; education, from elementary school to post-secondary and access to the professions; the impact of religion and government policies; and social and political activism, including feminism and struggles to attain equality with men. Early chapters deal with New France and the first part of the nineteenth century, and the remaining are devoted to the period since 1880, an era in which women's lives changed rapidly and dramatically.

The book concludes that transformation in the means of production, women's social and political activism (including feminism), and Quebec nationalism are three main keys to understanding the history of Quebec women. Together, the three show that women's history, far from being an adjunct to "general history," is essential to a full understanding of the past. Originally published in French with the title "Breve histoire des femmes au Quebec. "