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The Cross and the Arrow
Albert Maltz; Introduction by Patrick Chura
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R248
Discovery Miles 2 480
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Despite being decorated with a German Service Cross, Willi Wegler
is inwardly sickened by both Hitler’s genocidal war and the
complicity of his fellow citizens in Third Reich brutalities.
Wracked by guilt, he suddenly betrays his country in a profound
gesture of protest and self-sacrifice: during the course of an air
raid, he fashions an enormous arrow out of hay in an open field,
then ignites it as a flaming signal to direct British bombers to
the site of the factory where he works – an act that cannot fail
to precipitate a series of dramatic events. The Cross and the Arrow
– first published in 1944, during the latter stages of the war it
describes – portrays a man’s struggle to retain his dignity in
defiance of state-sponsored cruelty and explores the role and
responsibility of the individual in the face of tragic global
events. In its examination of an enemy’s complex heroism, it
provides a life-affirming message of humanity’s ultimate capacity
for good.
The book analyzes American literature about middle or upper class
characters who voluntarily descend the class ranks to experience
"vital contact" by living or associating, temporarily, with the
poor. The motivations of these characters--and historical figures
such as John Reed and Walter Wyckoff--range from straightforward
bohemian slumming among the "exotics" to more complex and
psychologically wrought investigations of cross-class empathy. The
study begins by charting downclasing processes in works of
canonical nineteenth-century authors, including Melville,
Hawthorne, James, Howells and Jewett. It then undertakes an
original analysis of John Reed's involvement with the 1913 Paterson
silk workers' strike as a context for understanding Ernest Poole's
(now forgotten, but then best-selling) fictionalization of the
strike in his novel, "The Harbor," In other richly historicized
chapters, it analyzes distillations of class radicalism in several
works by Upton Sinclair, in the early drama of Eugene O'Neill, and
in feminist novels of the 1910s by Elia Peattie and Clara Laughlin.
The concluding chapter looks at sophisticated treatments of "vital
contact" in fiction of the 1930s by Dos Passos, Steinbeck and
Richard Wright. The book provides Americanists with important new
ways of thinking about various forms of class identification as
they developed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The book analyzes American literature about middle or upper class
characters who voluntarily descend the class ranks to experience
"vital contact" by living or associating, temporarily, with the
poor. The motivations of these characters--and historical figures
such as John Reed and Walter Wyckoff--range from straightforward
bohemian slumming among the "exotics" to more complex and
psychologically wrought investigations of cross-class empathy. The
study begins by charting downclasing processes in works of
canonical nineteenth-century authors, including Melville,
Hawthorne, James, Howells and Jewett. It then undertakes an
original analysis of John Reed's involvement with the 1913 Paterson
silk workers' strike as a context for understanding Ernest Poole's
(now forgotten, but then best-selling) fictionalization of the
strike in his novel, The Harbor. In other richly historicized
chapters, it analyzes distillations of class radicalism in several
works by Upton Sinclair, in the early drama of Eugene O'Neill, and
in feminist novels of the 1910s by Elia Peattie and Clara Laughlin.
The concluding chapter looks at sophisticated treatments of "vital
contact" in fiction of the 1930s by Dos Passos, Steinbeck and
Richard Wright. The book provides Americanists with important new
ways of thinking about various forms of class identification as
they developed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Henry David Thoreau, one of America's most prominent environmental
writers, supported himself as a land surveyor for much of his life,
parcelling land that would be sold off to loggers. In the only
study of its kind, Patrick Chura analyses this seeming
contradiction to show how the best surveyor in Concord combined
civil engineering with civil disobedience. Placing Thoreau's
surveying in historical context, Thoreau the Land Surveyor explains
the cultural and ideological implications of surveying work in the
mid-nineteenth century. Chura explains the ways that Thoreau's
environmentalist disposition and philosophical convictions asserted
themselves even as he reduced the land to measurable terms and
acted as an agent for bringing it under proprietary control. He
also describes in detail Thoreau's 1846 survey of Walden Pond. By
identifying the origins of Walden in--of all places--surveying
data, Chura re-creates a previously lost supporting manuscript of
this American classic.
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