Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1811-1888), Argentine educator, statesman, and writer, self-educated after the model of Benjamin Franklin, was "not a man but a nation," in the words of Mrs. Horace Mann. Like De Tocqueville, this remarkable man visited the United States in its early years and wrote a detailed account of this new phenomenon. Full of shrewd social commentary and unique vignettes of the America of this period-of Boston, for instance, where Sarmiento met the Horace Manns and later Emerson and Longfellow-Travels should take its place among the important commentaries on the United States written during the last century by foreign visitors. Professor Rockland's introductory essay provides the broader context in which Travels must be seen: its place in Sarmiento's life and career and its importance as testimony to forgotten lines of influence between North and South America. Originally published in 1970. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1811-1888), Argentine educator, statesman, and writer, self-educated after the model of Benjamin Franklin, was "not a man but a nation," in the words of Mrs. Horace Mann. Like De Tocqueville, this remarkable man visited the United States in its early years and wrote a detailed account of this new phenomenon. Full of shrewd social commentary and unique vignettes of the America of this period-of Boston, for instance, where Sarmiento met the Horace Manns and later Emerson and Longfellow-Travels should take its place among the important commentaries on the United States written during the last century by foreign visitors. Professor Rockland's introductory essay provides the broader context in which Travels must be seen: its place in Sarmiento's life and career and its importance as testimony to forgotten lines of influence between North and South America. Originally published in 1970. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

An American Diplomat in Franco Spain is filled with Michael Aaron Rockland's experiences as a cultural attache at the United States embassy in Madrid, Spain in the 1960s. He captures episodes of historical and cultural significance as he goes about doing his country's business. Some of his stories are quite poignant while others are quite amusing. He shares with his readers how he avoided shaking Francisco Franco's hand, how he spent a day with Martin Luther King in Madrid, how his son was selected to be in the movie Dr. Zhivago, how he came to know several Kennedys, including Senator Edward Kennedy, Pat Lawford Kennedy, and Jackie Kennedy, and how the U.S. accidentally dropped four unarmed hydrogen bombs on Spain. Throughout these stories, Rockland explains Spanish culture, past and present, with his experiences involving bull fighting, being a Jew in a very Catholic Spain, his love affair with Spanish food, and what is lost in translation.

STONES is a novel simultaneously serious and comic. It takes place in one day as its protagonist, Jack Berke, accompanies his aged mother Rachel to visit the family graves in Brooklyn, Queens, and further out on Long Island. As Jack negotiates the congested expressways from cemetery to cemetery, he contemplates the tombstones, the lives of family members who lie under them, the stones that, according to Jewish custom, he places on those tombstones, and the stone that has for a lifetime resided in his own heart.

When Daniel Boone heard a neighbor's dog bark, he moved West. But when there's no Wild West left, where is adventure to be found? Michael Aaron Rockland looks for adventure in the megalopolis, "not where no one has been but where no one wishes to go . . . across traffic-clogged cities, the parking lots of wall-to-wall suburban malls, and the sinister waterways that seep through rusting industrial sites." In these ten alternately poetic and comic tales of adventure in the New York/Philadelphia corridor, the most densely populated chunk of America, Rockland walks and bikes areas meant only for cars and paddles through waters capable of dissolving canoes. He hikes the length of New York's Broadway, camps in New York City, treks across Philadelphia, pedals among the tractor trailers of Route 1 in New Jersey, and paddles around Manhattan and through the dark tunnels under Trenton. Whereas Henry David Thoreau built his cabin on Walden Pond to get out of town, for Rockland, the challenge is to head into town. As he writes, "in the late twentieth century, a weed and trash-filled city lot . . . may be a better place than the wilderness to contemplate one's relationship to nature."

Container shipping is a vital part of the global economy. Goods from all around the world, from vegetables to automobiles, are placed in large metal containers which are transported across the ocean in ships, then loaded onto tractor-trailers and railroad flatbeds. But when and where did this world-changing invention get started?   This fascinating study traces the birth of containerization to Port Newark, New Jersey, in 1956 when trucker Malcom McLean thought of a brilliant new way to transport cargo. It tells the story of how Port Newark grew rapidly as McLean’s idea was backed by both New York banks and the US military, who used containerization to ship supplies to troops in Vietnam. Angus Gillespie takes us behind the scenes of today’s active container shipping operations in Port Newark, talking to the pilots who guide the ships into port, the Coast Guard personnel who help manage the massive shipping traffic, the crews who unload the containers, and even the chaplains who counsel and support the mariners. Port Newark shines a spotlight on the unsung men and women who help this complex global shipping operation run smoothly. Since McLean's innovation, Port Newark has expanded with the addition of the nearby Elizabeth Marine Terminal. This New Jersey complex now makes up the busiest seaport on the East Coast of the United States.  Some have even called it “America’s Front Door.�  The book tells the story of the rapid growth of worldwide containerization, and how Port Newark has adapted to bigger ships with deeper channels and a raised bridge. In the end, there is speculation of the future of this port with ever-increasing automation, artificial intelligence, and automation.

Two American Studies professors from Rutgers University here show how the New Jersey Turnpike--that "ugly icon, '' America's "widest and most traveled'' road--has found its way into the minds, if not the hearts, of artists and drivers alike. In poet Allen Ginsberg, singer Bruce Springsteen, commuters and roadside home owners lulled to sleep by its drone of traffic, this 12-lane asphalt monster has inspired powerful reactions, from admiration to anger. The authors consider the first asparagus patch plowed up to lay the road; the $70,000 salary a contemporary toll-taker can earn with hefty overtime; and the not infrequent lawlessness of the highway patrol. From the gray-flannel-suit diligence that built it, to the mixture of necessity, practicality and venality that maintains it, the New Jersey Turnpike proves to be an enthralling though unlikely subject.