Summer wheat, heavy with grain, waved in the July wind, and when touched by the afternoon sun, cast a golden glow on the rocks of Cemetery Ridge. Jonathan stood with his countrymen, rifle drawn, wiping sweat from his eyes with the sleeve of a ragged Confederate uniform. Then the nod, Longstreet to Pickett, whose men charged screaming the blood-curdling Rebel yell. Brave soldiers, strength pressed to the breach, fell like autumn leaves. Blood ran freely down the hill. Gettysburg was a trough. Jonathan could see with horrifying clarity from the hillside that Kemper, Armistead, and Semmes were dead. Garnett, already wounded in the leg, gallantly rode his horse in the charge facing certain death, and it was so. Jonathan reached the crest of the hill, slashing Union soldiers with every move, the grotesqueness of the hour searing his consciousness. He took a saber slash through the leg, grabbed the rogue Yank, and pulled him from his horse. With his bowie knife, he put an end to the savagery. But Jonathan was a savage himself. Both countries had gone mad and, in madness, had taken along every southern gentleman.

Jane Bennett Gaddy has captured in her third installment of the Payne family, JOAB, a piece of the history for Faulkner's "little postage stamp of native soil" with a combination of history and fiction. She places Joab in Oxford, known as Jefferson in the Faulkner novels, at a time when this town was at its lowest. History and fiction sometimes come together and Gaddy has given us something, as Oxonians, to think about in our "little postage stamp of native soil." -Jack Lamar Mayfield, Columnist, "The Oxford Eagle"

I was born in the flat fertile Mississippi Delta in 1940. I grew up in a white clapboard plantation house, on the heels of the Great Depression, when cotton was still running the show in the south, and well before the Civil Rights Movement. Love took me out of the Delta, and it was love that brought me back, for there are some things that cannot be forgotten or left behind. So, here it is. After all the years that have come and gone, here is a Delta girl seeing the grand old South through a window, all but closed now. There were days hot enough to melt lead, and bitter winters that tested and forged the human spirit. And in a way, that's how I felt looking back on it. There we all were, scratching at the ground for our white gold and imagining the world beyond the cotton rows. It's my life and a heritage of pride in my homeland, my view of America, of family, of love, and ultimately of the "House Not Made With Hands."

Genetic Resources of Mediterranean Pasture and Forage Legumes is a comprehensive review of grassland improvement in Mediterranean areas using legume species. The book includes a detailed account of the processes involved in understanding the ecology of legumes and their collection in the Mediterranean, through to their preliminary evaluation and storage at various Genetic Resource Centres. A generic conspectus and key to the forage legumes of the Mediterranean basin is also included. These proceedings are truly international with examples on the collection and use of Mediterranean genetic resources being illustrated by Genetic Resource Centres in Australia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Syria, Turkey and Tunisia. Current important issues such as the sustainability of Mediterranean grasslands, the risk of genetic erosion and the principles of population genetics employed during a collecting mission are discussed. The book will be of value to researchers working in the fields of grassland and rangeland improvement, Mediterranean farming systems, genetic resources, and pasture and forage ecology.

Genetic erosion, that is, the loss of native plant and genetic diversity has been exponential from the Mediterranean Basin through the Twentieth century. This careless eradication of species and genetic diversity as a result of human activities from a 'hot-spot' of diversity threatens sustainable agriculture and food security for the temperate regions of the world. Since the early 1900s there has been a largely ad hoc movement to halt the loss of plant diversity and enhance its utilisation. The Convention on Biological Diversity and Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources, both highlight the need to improve conservation methodologies and enhance utilisation techniques. It has been argued that the most important component of biodiversity is the genetic diversity of crop and forage species used to feed humans and livestock. These cultivated and related wild species provides the raw material for further selection and improvement. Leguminosae species are of major economic importance (peas, chickpeas, lentils and faba beans, as well as numerous forage species) and provide a particularly rich source of protein for human and animal foods. Their distribution is concentrated in the Mediterranean region and therefore the improvement of their conservation and use in the region is critical. This text is designed to help ensure an adequate breadth of legume diversity is conserved and to help maximise the use of that conserved diversity. The subjects of conservation and use of legume diversity, the Mediterranean ecosystem and taxonomy of legumes are introduced. Generic reviews of the taxonomy, centre of diversity, ecogeographicdistribution, genetic diversity distribution, conservation status, conservation gaps and future research needs are provided, along with a discussion of the importance of rhizobia to the maintenance of legume diversity. Current ex situ and in situ conservation activities as well current legume uses are reviewed. In conclusion future priorities for ex situ and in situ plant genetic conservation and use of Mediterranean legumes are highlighted. All contributors look forward rather than simply reviewing past and current activities and therefore it is hoped that the identification of genetic erosion, location of taxonomic and genetic diversity and promotion of more efficient utilisation of conserved material will be enhanced.

Thoreau's Nature: Ethics, Politics, and the Wild explores how Thoreau crafted a life open to 'the Wild, ' a term that marks the startling element of foreignness in every object of experience, however familiar. Thoreau's encounters with nature, Bennett argues, allowed him to resist his all-too-human tendency toward intellectual laziness, social conformity, and political complacency. Bennett pursues this theme by constructing a series of dialogues between Thoreau and our contemporaries: Foucault on identity and power, Haraway on the nature/culture of division, Hollywood celebrities on the Walden Woods Project, the National Endowment for the Humanities on politics and art, and Kafka on the question of political idealism. The pertinence to the late 20th century of Thoreau's pursuit of independent judgment, ecological foresight, and moral nobility becomes apparent through these engagements

Issues a stern warning about the risks of speaking, writing, and thinking in a manner too confident about one's own judgments and asks, "Can a clear line be drawn between dogmatism and simple certainty and indignation?" Bennett and Shapiro enter the debate by questioning what has become a popular, even pervasive, cultural narrative told by both the left and the right: the story of the West's moral decline, degeneration, or confusion. Contributors explore the dynamics and dilemmas of moralizing by advocates of patriotism, environmental protection, and women's rights while arguing that the current discourse gives free license to self-aggrandizement, cruelty, vengeance and punitiveness and a generalized resistance to or abjection of diversity.

Genetic Resources of Mediterranean Pasture and Forage Legumes is a comprehensive review of grassland improvement in Mediterranean areas using legume species. The book includes a detailed account of the processes involved in understanding the ecology of legumes and their collection in the Mediterranean, through to their preliminary evaluation and storage at various Genetic Resource Centres. A generic conspectus and key to the forage legumes of the Mediterranean basin is also included. These proceedings are truly international with examples on the collection and use of Mediterranean genetic resources being illustrated by Genetic Resource Centres in Australia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Syria, Turkey and Tunisia. Current important issues such as the sustainability of Mediterranean grasslands, the risk of genetic erosion and the principles of population genetics employed during a collecting mission are discussed. The book will be of value to researchers working in the fields of grassland and rangeland improvement, Mediterranean farming systems, genetic resources, and pasture and forage ecology.

In her sensitive book for parents, Jane Bennett dispels the notion of the curse, replacing it with a positive and enlightened view of menarche and menstruation. With practical advice on how to explain menstruation to your daughter, help her cope with mood swings and pain, as well as handle such issues as contraception, you can feel confident that your daughter will have an affirming experience of menstruation.

"The very best feature of "The Enchantment of Modern Life" is the way it performs its own thesis: it is an enchanting, wonderful, and generous book that edifies and elevates the reader."--Moira Gatens, University of Sydney

"This book is a delight to read. Bennett has a remarkable talent for both being imaginative and yet not letting the enchantment of this flight lead her to fail in the task of carefully engaging those with whom she disagrees. She is enacting her own ideal of generosity while forging a powerful and original vision of late modern life. The core strength of this book lies in the way it draws the reader to entertain a distinctively different way of experiencing the world. No small achievement."--Stephen K. White, Virginia Tech, and Editor of Political Theory

"Bennett can do what others have not yet been able to do because she goes to the heart of the matter, to the foundation of those who claim to be foundationless, namely, to our underlying presumptions about the character of the material universe. She is a wonderful writer; her prose is crisp and clear, full of startling and enchanting formulations. The general effect of her book is to induce in us moments of enchantment, the ethical significance of which Bennett makes clear: she endeavors to attach us to the world, to bring forth our love for life, so that we are inspired to exercise greater care toward humanity and the material universe in which we live."--Melissa Orlie, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

""The Enchantment of Modern Life" has something very rare in an academic work: a mission. Even rarer, its sense of mission comes at no one's expense. The project is at once scholarly and ethical, seamlessly, integrally. This is not just another treatment of modernity. It is an exemplar, offering a gentle cure--a modernity of wonder--to the critical-cynical detachment that has been the hallmark of the humanities theorist for too long."--Brian Massumi, State University of New York at Albany

In influx & efflux Jane Bennett pursues a question that was bracketed in her book Vibrant Matter: how to think about human agency in a world teeming with powerful nonhuman influences? "Influx & efflux"-a phrase borrowed from Whitman's "Song of Myself"-refers to everyday movements whereby outside influences enter bodies, infuse and confuse their organization, and then exit, themselves having been transformed into something new. How to describe the human efforts involved in that process? What kinds of "I" and "we" can live well and act effectively in a world of so many other lively materialities? Drawing upon Whitman, Thoreau, Caillois, Whitehead, and other poetic writers, Bennett links a nonanthropocentric model of self to a radically egalitarian pluralism and also to a syntax and style of writing appropriate to the entangled world in which we live. The book tries to enact the uncanny process by which we "write up" influences that pervade, enable, and disrupt us.

A new administrator is hired to ease the transition when overcrowded and landlocked Perrine Memorial Hospital is bought out by a behemoth hospital system that covers much of the Pacific Northwest and promises to build a new hospital in Twin Falls. But Marcus Manning, a good ole boy with roots in Twin Falls, far from making anything easier, manages to earn the enmity of medical staff and employees alike as he ruthlessly goes about eliminating anyone who might oppose him in his quest to become not only CEO of Perrine Memorial, but CEO of the entire system. Unwisely, he starts his campaign with pathologist Toni Day, who blows the whistle on Marcus's twisted campaign of lies, blackmail and sexual abuse until the medical staff finally considers firing him, but is saved the trouble by someone with a more permanent solution ... of cyanide. Toni, as one of the prime suspects, is forced to solve the mystery of Marcus's murder to keep herself out of jail, and as she delves further into the private lives of those involved in Marcus's life, finds herself forced to kill in order to save her life and finally learn the truth.

In influx & efflux Jane Bennett pursues a question that was bracketed in her book Vibrant Matter: how to think about human agency in a world teeming with powerful nonhuman influences? "Influx & efflux"-a phrase borrowed from Whitman's "Song of Myself"-refers to everyday movements whereby outside influences enter bodies, infuse and confuse their organization, and then exit, themselves having been transformed into something new. How to describe the human efforts involved in that process? What kinds of "I" and "we" can live well and act effectively in a world of so many other lively materialities? Drawing upon Whitman, Thoreau, Caillois, Whitehead, and other poetic writers, Bennett links a nonanthropocentric model of self to a radically egalitarian pluralism and also to a syntax and style of writing appropriate to the entangled world in which we live. The book tries to enact the uncanny process by which we "write up" influences that pervade, enable, and disrupt us.

In "Vibrant Matter" the political theorist Jane Bennett, renowned for her work on nature, ethics, and affect, shifts her focus from the human experience of things to things themselves. Bennett argues that political theory needs to do a better job of recognizing the active participation of nonhuman forces in events. Toward that end, she theorizes a "vital materiality" that runs through and across bodies, both human and nonhuman. Bennett explores how political analyses of public events might change were we to acknowledge that agency always emerges as the""effect of ad hoc configurations of human and nonhuman forces. She suggests that recognizing that agency is distributed this way, and is not solely the province of humans, might spur the cultivation of a more responsible, ecologically sound politics: a politics less devoted to blaming and condemning individuals than to discerning the web of forces affecting situations and events.

Bennett examines the political and theoretical implications of vital materialism through extended discussions of commonplace things and physical phenomena including stem cells, fish oils, electricity, metal, and trash. She reflects on the vital power of material formations such as landfills, which generate lively streams of chemicals, and omega-3 fatty acids, which can transform brain chemistry and mood. Along the way, she engages with the concepts and claims of Spinoza, Nietzsche, Thoreau, Darwin, Adorno, and Deleuze, disclosing a long history of thinking about vibrant matter in Western philosophy, including attempts by Kant, Bergson, and the embryologist Hans Driesch to name the "vital force" inherent in material forms. Bennett concludes by sketching the contours of a "green materialist" ecophilosophy.